


Time to Pretend

by VulpesVulpes



Category: Grand Theft Auto V
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2015-11-08
Packaged: 2018-02-17 01:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2291699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VulpesVulpes/pseuds/VulpesVulpes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Trevor Philips is fine with being the outcast of the school, the town, everywhere. What he's not fine with is Michael Townley sticking his fat nose into his business and trying to make him feel less lonely. He wasn't even lonely in the first place. Mature for future chapters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Zero days without a fight

The school year had barely started and I’d already gotten five detentions. Today was the fifth, they told me I had an attitude problem. The only problem I had was with _them_ , those old fuckers that thought they could control me. No one controls Trevor Philips.

Being at the school late was something I didn’t mind too much, it wasn’t so bad there without all the crowds of cunts hanging around, getting in my way, generally being the fake morons they were. Besides, if I was here, it meant I wasn’t at home with my mom. I left the building through the front entrance, it was the middle of fall, so the sky was pretty dark already, and the sun setting to my left meant the clouds were stained with this orange glow, which gave my already pallid skin this extra sickly appearance. The trailer park I lived in was towards the back of the school, so I did as I always did and cut across the football field so I could hop the fence at the other end. This usually cut about 10 minutes off my walk home, and when the air was this cold, I was grateful for it.

Unfortunately, cutting across the football field involved having to pass by the locker room. After school football practice finished about the same time as detention, so this meant as soon as I walked past the doors, they burst open, spilling light onto the field, and the idiots on the school team came pouring out into the chilly air. I hated them. I hated everyone at this place, but they were the worst, loud for the sake of being loud, and dicks for the sake of being dicks. I usually tried to avoid them. Not because I was scared or anything, I’d happily take any one of them in a fight, but because the school councillor had told me I had some kind of anger problem and it was bad for my health or some shit. I wasn’t one for taking advice for some quack, but trying to avoid conflict couldn’t hurt.

“Philips!” I heard a voice from the open doorway. I gritted my teeth and ignored it, I just wanted to get home, not hang around talking to these fuckin’ assholes all day. But he didn’t let me leave. “Hey, Philips, I’m talking to you!” He sounded angrier now, and I heard heavy feet behind me before two burly hands pushed me to the ground, knocking the air from my lungs. “Don’t ignore me, you little shithead.”

I pushed myself to my feet and turned around.

“What? Snider? What do you fucking want?”

“That’s not very nice. Why are you in such a hurry? Trying to get home to fuck your mom?” His horrible booming laugh echoed around the field. My fists clenched. Avoiding conflict could wait.

My fist crashed across his face, making contact with his hard cheekbone, I knew I’d injured my hand from the sharp pain that shot up my arm but I didn’t give a fuck. While he was distracted, holding his face like the pussy he was, I took his head between my hands and brought my knee up into his stomach.

“What the _fuck_ was that?” I yelled at his collapsed figure, clutching at his abdomen and retching. “Sorry, I didn’t quite _hear_ you!”

What I didn’t notice while kicking the shit out of Brad Snider was the rest of the team pounding towards me across the grass to tackle me to the ground. I swear to God I saw a flash of white as I hit the hard, frozen earth. The fuckers nearly knocked me out but they didn’t give a shit, one of them pulled me to my feet and they took turns pushing me from one person to another, pausing to punch my face, my chest, my stomach, anywhere that would hurt, and believe me, if I didn’t feel so fuckin nauseous I would have fought back. As it was I could barely make a coherent thought, that knock to my head had really fucked me up. All I could comprehend was their stupid fucking laughter and their hands on me, don’t get me wrong, if this was any other day, having five guys put their hands all over me isn’t something I would be complaining about, but these fuckers were crossing the line. Then out of nowhere, another voice, calmer and further away.

“Alright guys, that’s enough.”

It was that Michael Townley dick. Hanging back, smoking a cigarette and watching the scene with a dark expression. They pushed me to the ground again and walked off, laughing at what happened and pushing each other like those kinds of assholes do. Michael didn’t leave though, he dropped the cigarette and came over, taking me by the elbow and pulling me to my feet. I was taller than him, but he was stocky, well built for football, and he pulled me up with ease.

“Sorry about them.”

I yanked my arm out of his grip. “I don’t need your fuckin help.” I growled, grabbing my backpack from the ground.

“Okay, man, I just thought-”

“Yeah well don’t.” I spat. “I said I don’t need your help, and I don’t need you feeling sorry for me. I don’t care.”

He backed off and held his hands up. “Dude, okay, sorry.” I just made a sort of lazy noise in response and left him standing there. God he was such an asshole, the only thing I hate more than people being unapologetic fuckheads is people _pitying_ me. I don’t want people feeling sorry for me, I just need another chance to strangle those jock bastards.


	2. Saint Michael

I’d really done a number on my hand with that punch. When I woke up the next morning the whole thing was inflexible and throbbing dully when I tried to move it. I scowled, Brad fucking Snider wasn’t even worth this and now I’d have to put up with it for the next few days. The only positive outcome was that at least I’d got in some good hits, I’d like to see that fat fucker look so smug with a black eye and ruptured intestines.

The kitchen was a fucking mess, as it usually was, but my mom had no doubt come back drunk last night and added to the disarray. I kicked some empty beer bottles out of the way so I could look in the fridge, there had to be something I could eat before leaving for school, that’s what I told myself, but the contents included more beer, an old loaf of bread which had started to create new life, and a bottle of ketchup. Well, this wouldn’t be the first time I’d gone to school without eating, and no doubt it wouldn’t be the last, I shrugged it off and grabbed my bag. The air was even colder today than it had been yesterday, I wasn’t even that sensitive to cold but I found myself zipping my thin jacket up even further and pulling the hood closer around my neck. The sky was white, it felt like snow would soon be falling later today if not tomorrow, I can’t say I was disappointed. The snow reminded me of home.

“Hey, Trevor!” I looked over my shoulder. It was Wade, the juggalo kid from a few trailers down, he hurried to catch up with me.

“No clown paint today?” I asked, but it wasn't because I cared.

“No, my teachers said if they saw me in it again I’d spend the rest of the year in detention.” He lisped. I hissed a laugh.

“You should have taken the offer.” Wade was a few years below me, he was only fifteen, and despite my obvious contempt for him he was probably the closest thing I had to a friend at school. Ron didn't count because he was too old for school, and besides the dude was visibly terrified of me. Respect was nice but it got to a point where you just wanted to shake him and yell at him to stop trembling. Wade was too stupid to be fully scared of me, evident in the way he babbled to me the entire walk to school, I was only half listening, he was talking about some girl called Daisy. I didn't catch any of the rest.

At the high school gates I finally managed to ditch Wade with the rest of his juggalo friends, even they were more scared of me than Wade was, and they didn't even know me. My reputation precedes me, evidently. I knew that anyway, it was obvious from the looks people gave me in the hallways, the way they avoided me, honestly I was glad about it and I’d rather people left me alone. My locker wasn’t hard to find. I’d scratched  _‘pants down dick out’_ across it in my first year here, and the deep, white gouges were still going strong. From inside I pushed aside some of the garbage and grabbed my first few textbooks for the day, suitably defaced of course, I mean what else was I going to do with them? Learn? Yeah, I don’t think so.

I slammed it shut and nearly jumped out of my fucking skin. Michael Townley was standing beside me looking sheepish with his hands in the pockets of his letterman jacket. He smelled like aftershave and the remnants of a cigarette. I probably smelled worse.

“What do you want?” I scowled.

“Hey, I was just wondering how you are.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yesterday, I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Nothing happened yesterday. I don’t need sympathy from you for your shitty friends. I don’t care, leave me alone.” I started walking towards my first class, history, which to my annoyance I realised he shared with me. He followed after me.

“Look I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“Good, then drop it.”

I left him by the door to sit down heavily in my seat at the back of the class. I’d vandalised this desk in the same fashion as my locker, my text books, pretty much everything I come into contact with, by drawing dirty cartoons and carving swear words into the wood. It wasn’t long into the class before I’d given up trying to listen and gone back to improving my desk. Michael’s seat was on the other side of the room, next to the window and a row in front of me. I looked over at him, he was such a conceited asshole, thinking he can play the saint with me, acting like he’s some kind of motherfucking hero who saved my life or something. And the way he kept pretending to care if I was okay or not, it was sickening. Saint Michael come down from his pedestal to protect the proles and bless us with his presence. Cunt. He wasn’t paying attention to the teacher either, instead tapping his pen on the desk and staring out the window. One of his hands was on his chin, but he moved it to brush it through his hair, which was short and dark and sticking up slightly. His attempt to smooth it down was useless. In comparison my hair was like a birds nest, badly in need of a cut. I didn’t care much about my appearance, Michael however clearly obsessed over his own, checking his reflection in the window to see if any hair was out of place, he was such a vain fucker.

“Michael, if my class is boring you, you’re welcome to leave.” He snapped to attention.

“Uh, no, miss, I was listening.”

“For your sake I hope you’re telling the truth, we have tests coming up in a few weeks and you’re only letting yourself down by not paying attention.”

I smirked to myself at the embarrassed expression on Michael’s face that he’d been caught staring at his own ugly face. Okay, maybe ugly wasn’t true, he looked like a real fucking  _guy_ , perhaps I liked how his face looked, that didn’t mean I liked him as a person. He acted like this nice fella, but I’d heard the rumours about his anger issues. Perhaps we weren’t so dissimilar, me and Townley. He kept his eyes firmly on his desk for the rest of the lesson, roughly grabbing his bag as soon as the shrill bell rang above our heads.

We both had the same lunch period, so I didn’t see him again that day until I was sitting in the corner of the cafeteria and his friends burst through the doors. Michael was in front, but he wasn’t joining in with their dumb laughter, just seeing their faces made me mad, God I wished I could have had more of a chance to rip into Snider. Although I do have to say, he was sporting a nice fucking shiner courtesy of my own fist. I smirked. The pain in my hand really was worth it, he looked like a pig on a good day and this just made it worse. I turned back to the book on my desk. This was just about the only book that I hadn’t graffitied, my flight manual. I studied this book religiously, I needed to know it inside and out if I ever wanted to pass the entrance exams into flight school. I never had money for lunch, so this was basically a free period for me to brush up on my flying knowledge.

I heard a burst of laughter from the football player’s table and glanced up, Michael was joining in with them now, if a bit half-heartedly, there was this look in his eyes that said he didn’t really want to be there, I’d noticed it all day, what was his problem? I mean, no one wanted to be here, but no one else had this expression in their eyes like he did. I shook my head and turned back to my text book. Michael Townley’s problems were not my problems.

Walking home from school without detention meant I could pass the football field and see Townley playing football, he was good. I had to admit that, better than the others, at least. I didn’t really know anything about football, but from what I was seeing, he was definitely talented at what he did. I paused at the edge of the bleachers to watch him shouting instructions at the rest of the team, I guess as the QB he was also kind of the coach, either that or their regular coach wasn’t present today. He looked happier yelling at his friends than he had done all day, that was for damn sure, but why I was wasting time even thinking about this was a mystery.

My concentration on that train of thought snapped when I realised he was watching me watching him, one of his hands raised in a silent greeting, I flipped him off in return and stomped away, embarrassed I’d been seen watching them. I didn’t  _care_ about him playing, I was just distracted by my thoughts. Now he thinks I was interested or something.

How fucking awkward.

My mom still wasn’t home when I got back to the trailer, which was a relief, she was probably out working at the club so it’s unlikely she’d be back before it was dark, so it gave me some time to myself, aka stealing her beers and flopping down in front of the TV. I was surprised to notice, however, that there was a white box in the fridge with some leftover Chinese take-out. On the side she’d written ‘Trevor’, if it wasn’t such a weak offering I’d almost feel touched by it. My starving fingers grabbed it hungrily though and I ate it while watching TV, I hadn’t eaten all day, it wasn’t something I really thought about much but now that I was eating, the hunger was noticeable. Our TV was black and white because she didn’t feel like dishing out for a better one, but right then it didn’t matter because I was watching a rerun of  _The Honeymooners_ , which was in black and white anyway.

It was one of my favourite episodes, I loved this old shit, it was so much funnier to me than modern stuff, I didn’t understand any of that or why it was funny. This stuff though? Comedy gold. In my eyes anyway.

It was about three in the morning when I jolted awake from a bad dream, spilling the beer still clutched in my hand over the couch.

“Shit, wh…” I murmured to myself, rubbing a hand across my face. I hadn’t even realised I’d fallen asleep here, although I did it more often than I could count, I pulled myself to my feet to move back to my own room and left the beer on the table. I glanced into my mom’s room as I passed, she still wasn’t back. I told myself I didn’t care and fell back to sleep.

The next morning was a Saturday, so I didn’t have to wake up early or anything. My favourite part of the week, being able to hide under my covers from the morning sun and grab several more hours of sleep. And when it was a more reasonable time for me to be awake, think two in the afternoon, I pulled on some sweatpants and a hoodie and stepped outside into the weak autumn sunlight onto the porch. Wade was sitting outside his trailer with Ron, he waved to me and I nodded back to them both, stretching my arms over my head. There had to be something I could made from the rest of this day, I didn’t want the whole thing to be wasted after all. I joined the two of them after stepping into my boots.

“What’s up, boys?”

“Wade was just saying he saw some new people moving into the nicer side of the park. Could be an opportunity to get them… better acquainted to the area.” Ron said in that nervous voice of his.

“They looked pretty rich, Trevor.” Wade lisped.

“Wade, do you think if they were fucking rich that they would be moving into this dump? Huh? Think about it you fucking clown. Where are they?”

“Like I said, on the western side of the park, not too far from the entrance. Could be a good idea to scope it out now and maybe return tonight?” Ron said, adjusting his glasses on his face.

“Sounds like a fine plan, Ronald. Wade, on your feet.” The younger boy jumped up to join me, Ron however didn’t move.

“What, you’re not coming with us?” I raised my eyebrows.

“No, I’ve got, uh, some other stuff I have to be doing.” His blatant lie made me roll my eyes but I didn’t pursue it, it was too early and I was still groggy from sleep.

“Ron, remind me to kick your ass later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully each chapter should be about this length, if not a bit longer, from now on. I'll be updating as I write rather than sticking to a regular schedule. Thank you very much for reading, I appreciate it


	3. Rum Runner

Wade showed me the way to the new residents trailer, like Ron had said, there was a section of the trailer park which was kinda nicer than the part we lived in, it was more the homes of retirees and people who’d once lived in houses, unlike the true trailer trash me and my buds were. We crossed over the unspoken line from dirt-poor into regular-poor and instantly the scenery changed. Windows weren’t boarded at every turn, people had gardens with flowers and shit, tacky china ornaments sat around waiting to be smashed. I helped them along, picking up a garden gnome. I’d always hated these fucking things. With one eye closed I aimed for the back of Wade’s head, pelting it towards him, but I had to use my left hand because my other one was still fucked up, so my aim was off and it went whizzing past his dreadlocks to smash into the side of a blue trailer. Wade jumped away from the sudden noise and the china shards bouncing back at him, but he knew better than to question why I’d done it.

“Shit.” I muttered, scowling and internally blaming Wade for not being in my trajectory. By picking up my pace I caught up with him, but to my left there was the sound of a trailer door opening, which got my attention only out of very mild interest, but I stopped dead.

I only stopped because this guy had a really familiar haircut, and he was big and stocky in a horribly recognisable way. He pulled the door shut behind him and started down the steps of his porch.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” I growled at Townley, he stopped and looked stunned for a second, obviously not expecting to be spoken to.

“Uh, hi? I live here?”

“Bullshit do you live here. You live in some big house like the rest of those fuckwads.”

“No, I live here.” He laughed awkwardly. I hate to say it but it kind of… I dunno, humanised him a bit. Brought him down to my level. I mean, he was still in a nicer area of the park than where I lived, but I felt more at ease around him. He couldn’t look down his nose at me anymore, and knowing that made me feel weird, I put my hands in my pockets uncomfortably and frowned.

“So… what are you doing?”

“I’m just about to try and fix something on my dad’s car. If you wanna give me a hand I’d appreciate it.”

Typical, two minutes in my presence and he was already asking for a favour. I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“Fine, whatever.” I pretended it was some great effort but honestly I was grateful for the company of someone that wasn’t just Wade for once. Even if it was Michael fucking shithead Townley. “Fuck off, Wade.”

“Oh. Okay, see you, Trevor.”

I knew something about cars, mainly from boosting them, but knowledge was knowledge, and maybe if I spent enough time around here I could find away into his trailer and rob him blind. He’d never expect it. Perfect. Plus, I guess taking a look at the car wouldn’t hurt in gaining his trust. His dad’s car was some beat up old station wagon, parked round the side of the small garden, it was white and rusty and pretty damn ugly.

“What’s wrong with it?” I asked as he popped the hood.

“I’m not sure, honestly I don’t really know what I’m looking for. I’m not exactly an expert on cars.” He said. “He said it’s been making this clunking noise from the engine for about a week, though.”

“Turn the engine on for me.”

Michael went round to the front seat and the engine rumbled to life in front of me, sure enough there was a familiar knocking noise from inside.

“Yeah, I know what your problem is.”

Townley’s head poked out from inside the car. “You do?”

“Yeah. Do you have any of that, uh, motor treatment?”

“I think we have some in the garage hang on.” He climbed out of the car with the engine still running and headed back into the small garage.

“You’re gonna want a funnel too.”

I heard him make a noise of acknowledgement and I went about jiggling the vacuum hose away from the brake booster, the thing was stuck from years of not being cleaned, but with some force it soon enough it came off in my hand just as Michael appeared at my side holding a can and a funnel.

“Is this the stuff you want?” I glanced up.

“Yeah, perfect.” The funnel fit snugly into the rubber hose, and once it was in the only thing left to do was pour half the can inside.

“So what exactly is the problem?”

“Dirty cylinders. No doubt haven’t been cleaned for a long time. You get a carbon build up and the car isn’t happy about it.”

“And this stuff will do the job?”

“Should do, if not then you have a bigger problem on your hands.” I finished pouring and chucked the can over my shoulder. “Go put your foot on the pedal.”

Michael did as I asked, and the treatment caused huge clouds of white smoke to belch out of the exhaust.

“Is it meant to be smoking like that?” His muffled voice came from inside the car. It was so loud I had to raise my voice for him to hear me.

“Yeah, it’s cleaning out all the shit.”

This car was so old and so filthy it took longer than usual for the smoke to clear, there was a LOT of shit clogged up inside, I wasn’t surprised the engine was fucked. Michael switched the car off and joined me by the clunk-free engine again.

“Wow, Trevor, you really know your stuff.”

I shrugged. “I get by. I prefer planes.” Now that the car was off, I pulled the funnel out and tried to force the tube back onto the check valve, this was where I really proved myself to be an idiot though because I used my bad hand, which I’d forgotten about in the distraction of actually _doing_ something, and I recoiled at the pain shooting up my arm, hissing a little at the shock.

Michael looked at me. “You okay man?”

“Yeah my hand’s just a bit sore still from beating Sniders face in”

He breathed a laugh. “He deserved it.”

“I’m surprised you’re not backing up your dumb buddies and trying to beat my face in right now.”

“Nah, I don’t really support the stupid things they do. They’re dicks, I’m just on the team.” And I hated to admit it but Townley wasn’t actually as insufferable as I’d once thought he was. He seemed pretty cool, less of a shithead than his friends that was for sure. I didn’t get that snobby vibe from him now that we’d actually spoken.

“Thanks for helping me, man. You can come in for a beer if you want?”

“Sure, okay.” I didn’t want him to think we were friends now or something, but a free beer is a free beer, I followed him inside the trailer, it was bigger than mine, and significantly tidier but that’s not to say it wasn’t messy, it just wasn’t filthy. His hand lifted in a vague gesture for me to sit down on the threadbare sofa and he pulled two bottles from the fridge. On the TV was an old rerun of _‘Impotent Rage’_. Man, I loved that show, I didn’t want to say so though because I didn’t know if it was on because Michael liked it or just to drown out the silence of his trailer.

“I can take a look at your hand if you want, I know a little about broken bones and shit. Football gets pretty physical sometimes.” His words were punctuated by the hiss of beer opening.

“You can if you want but it’s really not a big-” Without paying much attention to the rest of my sentence, Michael’s hand closed around my wrist and lifted my hand up off the sofa. I don’t remember the last time I had a guy hold my hand, and I’m not saying this was _holding my hand_ exactly, but there was palm to palm contact and his fingers were surprisingly gentle as he moved my wrist this way and that, poking it in different places and asking if it hurt. I frowned and looked away, I’m the first person to admit I appreciate an attractive guy but the last thing I wanted was to develop some kind of sad infatuation with this fuckin’ jock sitting next to me.

“I don’t think it’s serious, it’s definitely not broken, it might be slightly sprained but honestly if you rest it, it should be fine in a few days.”

My hand was released and I took an awkward sip of beer, grunting a slight thanks.

“You should be more careful, Trevor.”

“What would you know about it?”

“I’m just sayin’, if you go around punching meatheads in the face, it’s gonna take a toll on your health.” Michael smirked and drank from his bottle. I couldn’t help the smile that followed, I really didn’t want to be here, actually enjoying myself with him, but one beer turned to like four beers, and the sky got darker and darker and I was still sitting here on Michael Townley’s sofa. Although, by this point the awkwardness had worn off and I was tipsy, so I had my feet on his table.

We were watching ‘ _Rum Runner’_ , possibly one of the dumbest movies I’d ever seen in my life, I spent the whole thing laughing at the screen and laughing at Michael’s apparent love of this shit. When his eyes got all misty at Beryl’s _tragic_ death scene, I grinned and nudged him with my foot, he scrubbed at his face, smiling with embarrassment.

“You are _such_ a dick, Trevor, Jesus. This is the peak of cinema and you can’t even appreciate it.”

I drained my fourth bottle. “Y’know Mike, I always thought you were a massive dick, and something occurs to me after spending this time with you, I realised... you are a massive dick with bad taste.”

He laughed, pushing me roughly with one big hand. For once I actually felt like… happy? It’d been a long time since I’d felt anything comparable to happiness, but I was having a good time, it was nice. The atmosphere was destroyed, however, by the front door opening. A big guy in a vest entered the trailer, and instantly all the fun was gone. He ignored me and looked to Michael.

“Did you fix my car?” He asked gruffly, crossing over to the kitchen.

“Yeah, dad.” There was a tenseness about the way Michael sat when his dad entered the room, I saw it in the way he gripped the beer bottle between his fingers, the way his shoulders tensed slightly. His eyes remained fixed on the floor but he had this stony expression on his face. I stood up.

“Come on lets go outside.”

Just like yesterday I hadn’t eaten all day again, so as soon as I stood I was feeling the effects of the beers, Michael didn’t seem to be affected, but he was a big guy and he probably had three meals a day. What an asshole. I felt bad for him though, I knew that look in his eyes, and I knew how he was feeling. Just don’t ask me why I cared.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the positive feedback, it's very encouraging. By keeping the chapters around this length I'm able to keep updating more frequently, but leave a message if you want them longer.


	4. As if I need friends

The air outside was colder than it had been when we left it. They had a bench on the porch that I collapsed onto, Michael nudged me over with his hand so he could sit down beside me.

“Sorry about that.”

“Hey, man, no. Sorry about what? I’ve been there, dude, nothing to be sorry for.” I was kind of babbling from the alcohol but I wanted to get my message across. I knew how it felt to have some asshole old man dominating your life, hell, I’d had a lot of ‘em. Michael still looked uncomfortable and fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette, he offered the packet to me but I raised a hand.

“Nah, I don’t smoke.”

“If you’re sure, man.” His teeth closed around one and pulled it out, letting his lips meet around the cigarette to light it. God, I needed to stop paying so much attention to his fucking mouth. Being attracted to dudes was one thing, being attracted to Michael Townley was quite another. Probably faster than I should have done, I snatched the lukewarm beer from his hand and drained it, anything to distract my thoughts.

“If you wanted another one, you could have asked, you know.” His expression showed a slight amusement at my actions, I tossed the bottle into the darkness by the neck and felt a wave of satisfaction at the shatter that followed.

“Rather steal yours.”

“Man, you are so weird.”

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe I was uncomfortable with how familiar he was getting, or maybe it was my naturally short fuse but I snapped my gaze back to him, scowling.

“I’m not _weird_.”

“Trevor, chill, I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“You must have meant _something_.”

“I’m just talking shit, calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down. You don’t tell me when to calm down.”

“Trevor, Jesus. I thought we were cool, don’t flip out on me like this I don’t need it tonight.”

Despite him urging me not to, I stood up and thumped down the porch steps.

“Whatever. I’m outta this fake shit.”

“Trevor.” He called after me. “Trevor!” There were footsteps behind me. “Come on, T, at least let me help you back home, you can barely walk.”

“Fuck off, Townley.” I growled. And this had been going so well. To my irritation he followed me into the night, he was right in that I could barely walk in a straight line, but my annoyance had sobered me slightly, I certainly didn’t fucking need his help. I told him as much. “Why are you still following me?”

“Because I want to make sure you don’t fall in a ditch somewhere and crack your head open.”

“You’d love that, wouldn’t you? You and Brad, and that Haines asshole too.”

“What are you talking about? I told you, I don’t like those guys.” There was a frown on his face that I could see even in the darkness, and his hands were in the pockets of his jacket. I sneered at him.

“Sure, whatever man. Whatever you say.” My trailer was just becoming visible ahead of us.

“I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t know you’d get upset at that.”

“I’m not _upset_ , I just remembered how much I don’t like you.”

“Trevor-”

“Are you deaf, Townley? Go away.” The sound of my door slamming behind me rang out across the park, from behind the closed blinds I could see him still standing there for a second before turning away and disappearing into the dark. He looked defeated and it brought a mean smile to my face. God, I can’t believe I nearly fell for his bullshit. He’d intentionally lowered my inhibitions with promises of free beer, what a fucking snake.

 

There was actually someone knocking at my door. At this time. Wait, what time was it? I glanced at my clock. It was nine in the morning on a Sunday and some fucker thought it was okay to come knocking on my trailer door. I growled and pulled myself out of bed in just my vest and underwear.

“Wade, I swear to God, this better be goo-” The door rattled with how hard I yanked it open. It wasn’t Wade. “Oh. What do you want?”

Michael stood there looking considerably more dejected than last night, almost enough to make me pity him. Almost.

“Can I come in?”

I didn’t reply, I just stood aside for him to enter. He looked uncomfortably out of place in my trailer, like he was too big. I was taller than him but he gave this overpowering image that made him seem bigger than he was.

“What do you want?” I repeated.

“I just wanted to come check if you were okay.”

“I’d be a lot better if you’d have let me sleep in.”

“I didn’t mean to be a dick last night, y’know. You’re the first person in ages I’ve actually enjoyed myself with, I don’t want to fuck that up by running my mouth.”

I opened my mouth to tell him to fuck off, but I saw this pathetic expression on his face and the way his hands sat nervously in his pockets. Pretending to still be angry just cost too much energy. I shrugged.

“Ok, sure, it’s… whatever. It’s fine.”

At least that seemed to perk him up a little bit because he smiled. “I wanted to know if you wanted to hang out again today, I don’t have anything else going on.”

There was barely enough time to form a response before someone else knocked at my door. I pulled it open and there stood Ron, slightly out of breath from jogging over to my trailer, he squinted at me from behind his glasses.

“Trevor, I saw you were up. Wade said you didn’t even go to that trailer yesterday, what the hell, man? I mean. You can do what you want, but I thought we had a _plan_.” He babbled, I held up my hand to stop him.

“Shut up for a second, Ron.”

He closed his mouth and I closed the door in his face.

“Where were we?”

“What trailer? What plan?” Michael’s eyebrows raised.

“Never mind that, ignore him.” I said. “Sure, we can hang out. What did you have in mind?”

“I dunno, maybe we could go out for breakfast?”

“What, so you’re asking me on a date now?” The way his face turned pink and he backpedalled made me smirk, antagonising him was going to be fun as hell.

“ _No_ , not like a date, just, y’know, going to eat… food.”

“It’s okay, Michael, if you wanna take me on a date that’s fine. Let me just get dressed and put on my perfume and I’ll be with you.” Before he could splutter another response I turned and went back into my room, I didn’t bother closing the door because what did I care if Michael saw me getting changed. He was so God damn desperate to be straight that he probably had his eyes fixed straight on the floor until I was decent. Guys like that were the worst. Live a little, suck a dick, who cares?

There wasn’t really much choice for what to wear, so I grabbed a sleeveless Motörhead shirt from my floor, I wasn’t really trying to impress him, and he seemed relieved when I returned fully clothed.

Outside my trailer was the car I’d helped him fix yesterday, I hadn’t noticed it when I answered the door because I was too surprised to even see him here, but I climbed in the passenger side and it rumbled to life. No clunking to be heard.

“Thanks for your help yesterday, by the way. It runs like a dream. I appreciate it.”

“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” I glanced out the window as we passed Ron’s trailer, he was sitting outside still, watching me leave with Michael through narrowed, nervous eyes. I made a wanking motion with my hand at him out the window. “So, where are you taking me?”

“I don’t know, I hadn’t really thought that far ahead. Where do you want to go?”

I shrugged. “Shouldn’t the person who initiated the date decide that?”

The embarrassed frown that appeared on his face made me smirk. “Well, the Up-And-Atom diner isn’t too far from here.”

“Sounds good to me, Mikey boy.” I made sure things were sufficiently awkward by not chatting to him on the drive there, I could see the uncomfortable shifting in his chair, he clearly wasn’t used to silences. Well, Michael had told me himself he thought I was weird, well, he can experience it first-hand if that’s what he really wants.

Mike parked the car outside the run-down diner, I hadn’t been here in a long time, especially not with someone who’d asked me there with them, inside it looked like any other fifties style diner, red and white colour scheme, kind of a dump, the usual. My ‘not-a-date’ led me to a booth in the back.

“Nice and private, I like it.” I gave him a wink, really hamming it up. All I got was a roll of his eyes as he picked up one of the menus.

“Trevor, man, it’s not a fuckin’ date.” His eyes scanned the page. “Besides, if you keep being an asshole, you can forget about me buying you flowers.”

“Ohh! I see, so Mikey can joke too! Hello Michael’s sense of humour, where have you been all my life?” I grinned and snatched a menu up, despite wanting to annoy him by being as strange as possible, I was actually quite pleased he was started to hit my remarks back at me. And the thing is, the more I joked about it being a date to piss Michael off, the less this idea seemed ridiculous. My eyes found him over my menu. His hair was as neat as it always was, he was chewing his lip slightly as his blue eyes scanned the page.

Ugh, what am I, desperate? The guy’s a fuckhead. I frowned a bit at the menu, I’m just sexually frustrated and he’s attractive. Besides he was probably one hundred percent _straight_ like all the other football freaks, of course they’d never use that shower time to suck each other off in the mist, definitely _not_ , who could _think_ such a thing? I was paying this kid Lester to set up surveillance cameras for me in the locker room. Until that time it would remain a mystery, an enigma, a-

“What are you gonna order?”

His voice cut through my train of thought, I was so wrapped up in it I’d forgotten to actually, y’know, look at the menu. There was a waitress standing beside us.

“Oh, uh, I’ll have a cheeseburger. And a coke.”

An eyebrow raised. “A cheeseburger for breakfast?”

“I thought this was the land of the free? I’m free to eat a cheeseburger for breakfast if I want to.”

He shrugged and ordered bacon and eggs for himself. While we waited for our food, I linked my fingers across my tummy and sat back in the booth with one foot resting on the seat beside him, finally asking him a question that had been burning on my mind.

“Why are you so interested in being friends with me?” It was clear from his reaction that he wasn’t expecting me to ask this.

“Well… I dunno, you’re pretty fuckin’ genuine. I guess. Not like those dicks I usually spend time with. And you don’t kiss my ass.”

“I would have thought ass kissing was something you wanted.” Michael shook his head.

“No, it’s so… fake. All of it. I just want people to treat me like a normal person, even treat me like a jerk, I wouldn’t mind.”

“You are a jerk.”

“I know! That’s my point! They all excuse everything I do, even when I do things on purpose just to get a fuckin’ reaction. Nothing.”

“And you enjoy my company because I treat you like the dickhead you are?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. Well I’ve heard worse reasons to be friends with me. I’m not sure there is even a _good_ reason to be friends with me, but that’s close enough I suppose.”

“What about you? I never see you with anyone at school.”

I scoffed. “As if I need friends.”

“What about that guy that came to your trailer? And the kid you were with yesterday?”

“Yeah, I mean, I _guess_ they’re my friends but neither of them are my age, so it’s not like I could spend time with them at school even if I wanted to.”

“No one else?” He asked, I shrugged.

“There are a few people around the park I know. Maude, Cletus. But at high school? Nah.”

“Don’t you get lonely?”

“No. I’m a lone wolf. I don’t need people to be happy. I prefer my own company, anyway.” My eyes found a fly on the table that had landed on a coffee mug stain, it was rubbing its legs together and I considered crushing it.

“I guess. I’m kinda jealous of you for that then. I’m pretty much the king of loneliness.” He breathed out a little laugh but I glanced up at him, his chin resting in his cupped hand and there was definitely something hiding behind his laugh. And all over again, I pitied him.

“Well, good job you’ve got me then, eh?”

The smile that broke his face seemed pretty damn genuine, poor little fucker. “Yeah.”

Our food arrived shortly after, I grabbed one of the bottles sitting on the table and smothered my cheeseburger in ketchup. Michael neatly cut his food up before eating it, while I just shoved the thing in my mouth. This was probably the best meal I’d had in a long time. It was the warmest meal I’d had in a long time.

“Hungry, bud?”

All I could manage to reply with was a mumbled kind of noise of appreciation through the food filling my mouth. I sipped my coke to wash it down.

“Jesus Christ, these things are good.”

“Yeah, I love this place.”

“Like seriously, this is the best cheeseburger I’ve ever eaten, and I’m not just saying that because I don’t remember the last time I ate.”

The semi-concerned look that flashed across his face went unacknowledged by both of us and we finished our food with mild conversation that didn’t relate to my poor eating habits. When the waitress brought our bill over, I realised with an awkward pat of my pockets that I hadn’t actually got any money with me.

“Uhh…”

“Don’t worry, I got it.” Mike said, pulling out his wallet.

“You sure this ain’t a date?” He just smiled in response and put a ten on the plate beside us, standing up to stretch a bit. I followed him back out into the weak sunlight where the car was waiting. “What do you wanna do?” I asked.

“Dunno, we could go back to mine, my dad will _not_ be there this time.”

“Sure.” I didn’t really care what we did, it was either hang out with Michael or hang out with Ron and Wade, and to be honest spending time with someone who didn’t constantly tremble in fear of me was a lot more enjoyable. He parked the car back in his front garden and we entered his trailer together for the second time, this time he took me past the living room and into his small bedroom towards the back, I resisted the urge to make some kind of filthy joke and settled for scoping out his room. He had some peeling Vinewood movie posters on the walls, films like that one we watched the other day by that hack Solomon Richards, his bed creaked when he sat down heavily on it, aside from his bed and a few personal things around the room, there wasn’t much in here. There was a nightstand beside his bed though, I instantly went over and rifled through the top drawer, pushing aside pens, notebooks, garbage. After that I got to my knees and peered under the dusty bed.

“What are you looking for?”

“You haven’t got any pornos?”

“Haha… no. My dad might have some but nothing you’d like anyway.”

I lifted my head from under the bed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Y’know. They’d have… women in them…”

My eyebrows raised. “And?”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-” He raised his hands as he started babbling. “Everyone at school says you’re gay so I just… assumed. Sorry, man, I shouldn’t have believed rumours.”

“I’m not gay.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I know.”

“But I’m not straight.”

“Oh… then…?”

“I just don’t care.” I sat on the bed. “What else do people say about me?”

“Oh, I dunno, just, some stuff?”

“Like?”

“I dunno, dumb things like you’re a psychopath. I haven’t seen proof of that yet, though, so don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried about your opinion of me, Michael.” He was silent for a moment.

“So you’re bi then?”

“I dunno man, labels. Who cares?”

“I’m sorry, again.”

“Mike, I don’t fucking care. You think I give a shit what people say about me? And besides, it’s not exactly untrue, is it?”

“Have you ever like… been with a guy?”

“Jesus, Mikey, getting a bit personal here, aren’t we?”

His cheeks went pink. “I was just wonderin’.”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Why?”

“I dunno, man, conversation.” He lay back against the pillows, probably to avoid eye contact with me. He called me weird but he was something else.

“Sure, sure. And what about you? Have you been with a girl?”

He shrugged.

“What does that mean?”

“I dunno, kinda.”

“‘Kinda’? What is ‘kinda’? How can you ‘kinda’ be with a girl?”

“I’ve like, done _stuff_ , just not, y’know, sex.”

“Ahh, I _see_. Mikey, you fuckin’ dog.” I elbowed his knee, which was pulled up beside me. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

“There’s not been anyone special. Just kinda… drunk encounters.”

“Real classy.”

“So are you gonna answer my question?”

“What question?”

“The same one you’re asking me.”

“Oh.” I looked away. “Nah, I’m… nah. I’ve not really had much opportunity, y’know?”

“Yeah, don’t worry, I know what that’s like.”               

“You mean girls aren’t all over Michael fuckin’ Townley?”

“Yeah, I mean, okay I have opportunities but they’re not ones I want to take. There’s a girl, a cheerleader, Amanda, she’s interested in me but, I dunno, I find it pretty hard to connect with anyone.” I leaned my head back against his wall.

“Mmm.”

“It’s weird, like, being able to say this stuff to you and have it not be awkward.”

“Maybe we were just meant to be, Michael. Maybe we were meant to be.”

Honestly I was impressed with how chill he was about my sexuality, I’d expected at least some kind of disparaging comment or remark about how gross I was, how wrong I was, how I was going to hell. That’s the kind of thing people like him said, right? I can tell you for sure if this was one of the other football players they’d have something to say, no matter what kind of small friendship we’d struck up over the last few days, they would have a negative opinion they wouldn’t hesitate to tell me about. But aside from his awkward handling of asking me about it, Michael just didn’t seem to care. I mean, he’d assumed I was totally gay long before we even spoke, and he still treated me the same. It’s the eighties, prejudice was everywhere and I was definitely lucky that out of everyone, it was him to start talking to me. Sexuality didn’t faze me in the slightest, but with other people it was a different story, what confused me was how people even knew? It’s not like I’d dated anyone, or even talked to people about it, and I was pretty confident in my behaviour, I was hardly camp or anything, so how? And speaking of people at school, what the hell was gonna happen when we got back there?

“So what happens tomorrow?” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what happens tomorrow when we see each other? Are we going to ignore each other as usual? Because I don’t think your little pals are gonna be too happy if you start hanging around me in public. To be honest, I doubt they’d be happy to find about whatever this has been over the last two days.”

Michael chewed his lip. “I dunno, I don’t really care what they think of me. If they don’t like who I’m friends with that’s not my problem.”

“What about your spot on your precious team?”

“They can’t kick me off.”

“No, but they can ostracise you until you quit.”

“Man, I really don’t think they’re gonna care that much. Besides it’s not like we’re exactly gonna be spending the whole day together, we have different classes.”

“If you’re sure, but I think you underestimate how little they like me, there have been incidents in the past where you weren’t there to break it up.”

“I can get them off your back if you want.”

“No. Don’t bother, I can handle myself.”

“I just meant because there’s a lot of them, and only one of you. I don’t want them to do something stupid and hurt you.”

“And you think I need big brave Michael saving my ass? Like last time?”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

There was something in his face, I knew the look, and I’d gotten it before, just not from him. He was expecting me to blow up, expecting me to freak out on him just like the last time over some stupid slip up he made with his big mouth, and I gotta say that seeing him look at me that way felt pretty God damn bad. I wasn’t gonna go cry about it or anything, but I just felt this nasty sensation in the pit of my stomach, I didn’t want Michael to look at me that way, so I tried my best to compose myself, tried to remember the things the school counsellor had told me. My fingers flexed in his duvet cover. It was hard as fuck to diffuse my anger like this, suppressing my emotions gave me a headache that rippled across from the base of my skull to the top of my eyes, but I shakily exhaled it away and shrugged.

“Whatever, man. I’m fine. I don’t need your help with them.”

 

When I saw Michael on Monday morning it was in the hallway near my locker. He was standing with his crowd of football morons a few yards away, and turned his head absently at the sound of my locker opening, perking up slightly when he saw it was me. We exchanged curt nods but I didn’t miss the smile that appeared on his face when he turned back to his friends, he looked less fucking miserable, that was for sure, and I was beginning to realise that I liked it when he stopped looking so sad in favour of smiling at me. We’d only been friends for three days and I was finding myself happier to see him each time. It was just nice to have a real friend for the first time in my life, someone who was actually pleased to see me.

I didn’t bother disturbing him and his precious buddies to say hi, not even for how funny it would be to see their reactions, I just went straight to my first class. Michael wasn’t in this one, it was French, a class that I was naturally good at anyway from being exposed to the language in Canada, and so I was able to slack off with no real consequence to my grade. That wasn’t to say I cared about my grade or that I didn’t slack off in every class. I did share this class with Lester though, that kid that was meant to be setting up the surveillance cameras in the locker room for me, apart from wanting cold hard facts on what exactly those boys get up to in there, my main focus was getting dirt on fuckers like Brad Snider that could… suspiciously make its way around the school. Dirt such as the size of his miniscule cock. I leaned over Lester’s desk.

“You finished that job I asked you to do, or did you pass out from an asthma attack from seeing all those limp cocks?”

He gave me a slow, withering look.

“Trevor, you can either have it done fast, or you can have it done well.”

“Yeah, well, you’d better speed it up, amigo, I’m not paying you to sit on your fat ass all day.”

“I do have other commitments. To people I like better than you.”

“Why, Lester I was under the impression you _liked_ spying on other people’s naked bodies?”

His round face went pink, pinker than it already was, I caught the look he flashed me from behind those huge, thick glasses, my mouth stretched into a wide, knowing smile, but that was the last thing I got to say to him before the teacher entered the room and snapped at me to sit down at my own desk. I gave Lester a sly wink and left him to think about it. If he knew what was good for him he’d finish the work I needed him to do before anything else. I wasn’t above punching a kid on crutches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while since I last updated because I started back at university this week, so I've had other things to do. I focused on making this chapter a bit longer, and I'm hoping to increase the length with each one.
> 
> Art by me, here is a link to it on my tumblr so you can see the illustration at full size if you wanted to!  
> http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/97908153489/ok-wow-so-i-spent-several-hours-on-this-idk-how


	5. Too far gone

“Hey.”

I looked up from my flight book. Michael was standing beside my empty table holding a tray, I looked behind him, he was alone, and then into his eyes.

“What are you doing?”

“Can I sit with you?”

A response wasn’t really something Michael was going to wait for, because he sat down anyway, and I could feel the burning eyes of everyone around us. Why was Michael Townley sitting with someone like me? The whispers found my ears, and now he’d sat down I could see the football team glaring at me and the back of Michael’s head, the sudden attention wasn’t something I really liked.

“You don’t have to sit with me. I don’t care.”

He shrugged. “I’m sick of sitting over there anyway. I got you some French fries, I saw that you weren’t eating.” A bowl full of fries was shoved under my nose, the smell made my mouth water but I didn’t want to accept food from him a second time.

“You don’t have to feed me, we aren’t on a date anymore.”

“Eat ‘em.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Bullshit, I said eat ‘em.” I rolled my eyes for show but happily shovelled a few into my mouth. It had been a long time since I’d had a hot lunch at school and it felt pretty damn good.

“You not worried about those looks you’re getting from your little posse over there?” I asked through a mouthful of potato.

“Fuck no.” He picked up his fork. “They don’t own me.”

“Are you sure? Because they look pretty pissed off at both of us.”

“I’m serious, I don’t care.”

I shrugged and turned back to my food. “So what brings you to my table?”

“They were being cunts and I realised I didn’t have to be there.”

“Because you’ve got a brand new, shiny best friend right here?”

He pointed at me with his fork. “Exactly. See, until I met you I didn’t realise how little I cared about the shit they say. The way they talk about girls and people they don’t think are as good as they are, it’s so… unnecessary.”

“What can I say, Mikey, they’re unnecessary people.” I glanced at them. “Woah, heads up.”

Brad snider was just lifting his arm as my eyes met him to throw a bread roll in our direction, I had a feeling it was aimed for me, but before it got anywhere near me, and after it went whizzing past the head of a freshman on the table next to us, Michael stuck his hand out and caught the damn thing, sending it flying back at Brad and hitting him square in his bruised face. The other players laughed deeply at that, noise erupting from the centre lunch table, Mike sat back in his seat. I gotta admit I was impressed. I knew he was good at football, but I’d never seen an up close and personal demonstration of his catching skills. Before I could even give a response to what just happened, the freshman sitting behind Michael turned around in his seat.

“Dog, keep your high school dramas out of my face, alright?”

“Sorry, man.” Michael shrugged. The kid’s friend scoffed at him.

“As if that bitch-ass haircut is worth protecting.”

“Don’t push me, dog.”

Michael nodded at my book. “What’re you reading, Trev?”

My fingers slipped under the cover, which was flat against the table, so I could lift it slightly and show him.

“Preparing for flight school. As soon as I can I’m outta this dump and becoming a pilot.”

“Wow, no kidding? That’s pretty cool.”

One of my shoulders rose and fell in a lazy shrug. “Yeah, it’s basically the only thing I want.”

“Have you ever flown before?”

“I had a summer job flying a crop duster last year, but I wanna get into bigger planes. Y’know, shoot some people, bomb some villages, that kinda thing.”

“Naturally.” He smiled and I looked back down at my page a little happier than I’d been before. His knee bumped mine under the table but neither of us acknowledged it. “Do you wanna do something tonight? They fixed the _Street Fighter_ machine at the arcade, I could kick your ass if you want?”

“Sorry man, I got plans tonight.” There was a definite hint of disappointment in his expression which was gone as soon as it appeared. It wasn’t even a lie, I’d caught up with Ron after I left Michael’s house yesterday and Wade and I visited the trailer we were targeting, tonight was the night and I was so up for it, it had been far too long since I’d committed a crime.

“Okay, no biggie, I’ll catch up with you another time.” Michael sure seemed eager to hang out with me, I mean, this would be the third day in a row if I’d said yes, and there was a limit to the things you could talk about with someone who was basically a complete stranger. The most interesting thing about me was already out in the open, and I wasn’t surprised that a boy so painfully straight was _fascinated_ by my sexuality.

“Anyway don’t you have your precious football practice tonight?”

“Yeah I do, but I was thinkin’ we could go like, after.”

“So you wanted me to wait around while you play football?” My chin met my hand. “Michael I know we went on one date, but I am not your girlfriend.” He smirked and kicked me under the table.

“Quit that you dick, I could have picked you up from your place in the car but, whatever man. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t your dad care that you’re stealing his precious car all the time?”

“Ah, yeah, sometimes. But he’s never really home that much. Whatever, well I could have given you a ride on the back of my bike.”

“Oh, Michael that sounds very intimate, don’t make me regret saying no.”

“Will you fuckin’ _stop_?” But I could tell that he was amused. Talking to me was undoubtedly the most stimulating conversation he’d had in a long time, he probably appreciated anything that wasn’t ‘Ug’ Or ‘Football’. “So are you gonna tell me what you’re doing tonight?”

“That’s my own personal business, thanks.”

“Jerking off it is.”

“You wish, Michael, you wish. And I’d like to add that the day you kick my ass at _Street Fighter_ is the day hell turns cold. I fuckin’ _own_ that shit.”

His face broke into a wide grin. “Is that so? You’re fuckin’ on.” Considering how miserable he always looked when I saw him with his other friends, it really was kinda nice when he smiled. And at me, too. For a complete and utter asshole he had an infectious smile.

As we’d established, Michael was playing football after school again, it seemed like he did this most days. Personally, although I liked being here when no one else was, I’d hate to have to stay late every God damn day, that was the only reason I ever tried to avoid detentions, and I’d been lucky to not get one today, I suppose I was just too distracted by this budding friendship with Michael to act like a dick in my classes.

Just like I’d done last week I passed by them on the football field, their coach was back apparently because Michael wasn’t the one yelling at everyone. It wasn’t hard to find him amongst the rest, he was stockier than them, a bit shorter. That and his jersey clearly reading ‘Townley’. Again he spotted me and his wave was considerably more enthusiastic than before, I could even see the wide grin from behind his helmet, this time instead of flipping him off I returned his wave and got a glare from Brad in response. Michael noticed this and ‘accidentally’ threw the ball at the back of his head, I laughed. I couldn’t hear what they were saying but Brad looked pissed and Michael had his hands spread in a lazy shrug. So cute when he tries to impress me. I pulled my Harrington closer around my body, the air was getting colder, I knew it would snow soon and honestly I was surprised it hadn’t already. It was the middle of October and usually we’d be a foot deep by now.

Back at home I pushed open the creaky trailer door, I’d gotten so used to being alone that when I saw the flash of red hair and animal print reclining on the sofa with her big feet on the table, I recoiled slightly.

“Oh, there you are.” There was this judgemental glance in her expression as she cast her eyes over me briefly.

“Hi, mom.” My voice was unnaturally tense. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“I’ve been at Tony’s house, you’re eighteen, Trevor, and I’d expect you to be able to take care of yourself.” Seventeen, actually, but I didn’t correct her. My eighteenth birthday wasn’t for another few weeks, as if I’d expect her to remember that though. I had no idea who Tony was.

“Yeah.”

“I hope you aren’t planning on going anywhere I’m cooking a pot roast.” There was still a few hours before I had to meet Wade and Ron, so I suppose eating dinner with her for the first time in weeks wouldn’t hurt.

“No, I’ll be here.”

My shoes stayed in the living room and I pulled myself to my bedroom to collapse on my bed. Sure I cared for her, of course I did, but she didn’t half make me hate myself, it wasn’t even with a lot of the words she said, it was the looks she gave me, the constant staring down her nose. That or not looking at me at all, as if I wasn’t really worth her vision. The words didn’t help though, today she seemed to not be in such a foul mood, but I knew she could snap at any moment, sickly sweet one second and claws at my throat the next. Dodging around her made me feel nauseous with nerves, and the worst part was that I knew I took after her. When I wasn’t cowering beside her, I was becoming her in the presence of other people, but I didn’t like to think about that, I just shoved a thin pillow over my head and stayed there until she called me from the kitchen.

The two of us sat at the wobbly aluminium table, eating in silence. The food was okay, at least it was hot, I seemed to be getting lucky lately with finding hot meals, and there was still loads left over, so my dinner for the next few days was secure at least, even if she wasn’t. We’d been sitting there for ten minutes already before she broke the uncomfortable but normal silence.

“I’m at the club tonight and I won’t be back until tomorrow night so you will have to get yourself up for school.” She said through a cloud of smoke, I ignored the fact that I woke myself up for school every single day and just nodded. Usually the smell of cigarette smoke made me think of her and gave me this unpleasant feeling in the pit of my stomach, but this evening as soon as she’d lit the thing its smell made me think of Michael, and the way that he looked cool with a cigarette hanging lazily from his mouth as opposed to cheap like my mother. At least she wouldn’t be here when the boys and I brought back whatever we could find from the new neighbours. Not that she would have a problem with me being a criminal, I was pretty sure of that, I just didn’t want her in the way.

After dinner I gave my mom an awkward goodbye and left to find Wade, we’d arranged to meet at his trailer and Ron was already there when I arrived. They’d put on dark clothes like usual, we weren’t new to this, despite Wade’s simple mindedness he knew when to do what he was told.

“Ready, boys?”

“Yeah, we just got back from watching the trailer, they left about thirty minutes ago, we should be clear for another hour.”

“Nice, let’s go.”

The trailer park was unusually quiet for this time of night, I put it down to the cold weather, the chill in the air usually pushed people back into their homes. If this was summer we’d have a much larger chance of being caught, kids would be everywhere, men sitting on their porches with guns and whiskey, this time of year was best for being a degenerate. Our target was about a ten minute walk from the area of the park we lived in, all the way back where the trailers weren’t broken and full of graffiti, where there was a car in every drive, where the gardens were kept tidy and the roads were properly tarmacked. Fuckin’ assholes. I sneered at their luxury and kicked flowers dead as I passed.

“That’s it.” Ron’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts, his finger was extended towards a big trailer, identical to the rest, but just waiting to be raided. I pulled my hood up.

“You know what to do boys.”

I was in charge of breaking the door in, I didn’t trust the others to do it as expertly or as quietly, but once we were inside we split up, we had free rein over the house. The bedroom was the first stop for me, that’s where people kept their jewellery, and although no one here was exactly _rich_ , there was still a certain amount of valuables to be found. My hands greedily rooted through a jewellery box sitting beside the double bed, filling my pockets and looking through the drawers for good measure. Nothing else was in here, I had no problem leaving a mess, I wasn’t the one that would have to tidy it up, I considered pissing on the bedspread and I actually went far enough that I had my cock in my hand ready but something caught my eye in the corner of the room and a smile spread across my face, zipping myself back up. It was a TV. There hadn’t been one in the living room, I’d noted with disappointment, but there was one in here and my fingers were itching to take it. Not even to sell, I wanted it for myself. The idea of having my own television in my room was a far off notion I’d never considered would be a reality, we were too poor for that and my mom wouldn’t even entertain the idea. But here was one, sitting there ready for the taking and I’ll be damned if I miss an opportunity like this.

The thing was fucking heavy, I’ll give it that, but I got it settled across my arms and left the room to join the others, their pockets bulging with stolen good.

“Wade, help me with this.” He hurried over and took the other end, and the three of us awkwardly left the trashed trailer and disappeared into the darkness.

On the way back I knew we’d pass Michael’s trailer, he didn’t live too far from the place we’d just robbed, but what I wasn’t expecting when I glanced at it, what I hadn’t noticed when we’d first passed, was the plume of smoke coming from the porch. I could see the eyes staring us down with no expression. Seeing a person there was a shock in itself, but realising it was him made my blood chill. I stopped dead, making Wade trip slightly, and I gave him a disapproving look. Carrying a TV like this and dressed the way we were, there wasn’t much I could say to explain what we were doing because well, it was pretty damn clear what we were doing.

“Michael, we-”

“I want in.” His quiet voice carried across the road. Did I hear that correctly?

“You… what?”

He stood up and discarded the end of his cigarette to the dusty ground, coming towards us. Ron was standing beside me so I passed my end of the TV to him. With a wave of my hand I instructed them to keep moving, I’d catch up with them soon.

“Whatever you’re doing, stealing or whatever. I don’t care, I want to be a part of it.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m fucking bored. I’m bored of everything, and I want something to make me feel, I dunno, alive.”

“Michael, you have a pretty good set up right now, you’re popular, you do well at school and shit, believe me man, you don’t wanna fuck it up with me.”

“I’d rather fuck up my life and enjoy it than continue hating every second like I already do. I’m bored outta my fuckin’ mind, Trevor, you have to let me join you.” I studied his face in the dim light, he looked determined as hell to do this and I figured, why the hell not?

“Fine, okay, if you’re sure but I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Let me decide that for myself.”

My hands raised slightly in front of me. “Okay, man, whatever. I think you’re overestimating what we have going on here, though. It’s just me and my guys makin’ a bit of money, we’re not some international crime ring. Not yet, anyway.” I added with a smirk.

“I don’t care how small it is.”

“Suit yourself, I’ll talk to you about it next time we arrange something.” With a glance over my shoulder I could see that Wade and Ron had disappeared into the darkness. “I, uh, gotta go.”

“But one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I want to be equal to you in this, I’m not one of your little lackeys.”

“You think that highly of yourself, Townley?”

“It’s either that or my neighbours accidentally find out where you live.”

“Such a fucking snake.” I murmured with a smirk. Not that I appreciated being blackmailed, but I was impressed he could even think so deviously, Michael extended his hand to me, the other remaining in his pocket.

“Partners?”

His pale hand caught the light of the moon and reflected it, shining white against the dark backdrop of night, and I clapped mine against it to shake on our new agreement.

“Sure, partners.”

Although I couldn’t see Ron and Wade in the darkness when I was back at Michael’s place they hadn’t got that far ahead and I easily caught up to them.

“We can make some decent money off this, Trevor.” Ron huffed, struggling under the weight of the television.

“Are you kidding me, Ron? I’ve always wanted my own TV, now help me get it into my trailer.” I didn’t bother taking the TV back from him, they could handle it, I walked ahead and opened my front door. As I’d figured, my mom had already left, so the place was dark, there was a table in the corner of my room and with a sweep of my arm I cleared it and placed it at the foot of my bed ready for the TV. Wade tripped over some junk on my floor when he entered the room, earning a scowl from me.

“Be careful you little shit, that’s my new TV.” Ron crouched down and plugged it into the outlet behind my bed, I emptied my pockets into his hands. “Okay now get out, Ron start selling some of this stuff, I’ll see you tomorrow to collect money.” They just nodded and left me in peace, I reclined back on my bed, my eyes on the television. There was a dark grey reflection of myself in it and I don’t know if I liked that, I didn’t like looking at myself much. The only thing I could do to get rid of it was to turn the thing on with my foot and my room was suddenly bathed in light, _Cheers_ was on. I wasn’t a huge fan but I left it on because I wasn’t so much interested in watching the TV than not having to look at my own face. Was I making a mistake letting Michael in on this? Could he be trusted? Probably not, but for some stupid reason I couldn’t explain, the thought of having an excuse to spend more time with him felt really fuckin’ good.

 

Despite not smoking I kept a lighter on me at all times because you never know when you’ll need to set a tactical fire. Unfortunately on Monday my English teacher didn’t see the practicality in this and freaked the fuck out as soon as she realised I was burning the homework sheet I’d just been handed, I don’t know what the big deal was, at least I was holding it out the window for fuck’s sake. Maybe I crave attention, maybe I just liked the trouble, but because of it I found myself in detention again, stuck in this room with Johnny Klebitz and all the other fucking burnouts at this school.

The guy that monitored the detention hall was like a fucking jailor, you so much as cough in his presence and you’re stuck in here for the rest of the year, we were meant to be using this time to do homework and shit but as if I had time for that, I settled for looking out the window to watch the football pricks outside on the pitch. My eyesight wasn’t too good, so I couldn’t tell Michael apart from the rest at this distance, it was a shame because it meant I couldn’t watch his ass as he played, but it didn’t matter, they were all just blue blobs and I hated them all. It seemed like all they fuckin’ did was play football, what a small life that would be.

Some movement in the hallway caught my eye, and usually I wouldn’t bother turning my head to look but when I saw who was out there I raised an intrigued eyebrow. It was Lester, he was out of sight of the guy at the front of this room, but I could see him clearly, waving his fat little hand to get my attention. I couldn’t exactly go out and speak to him so I gave him a look as if to ask him what the hell he wanted. He was pointing up the corridor and then at his watch, it was nearly four O’clock, so I figured he wanted to meet me when I was out, and I have to admit I was curious.

Lester was waiting for me on a bench in the direction he’d been pointing, and as soon as I appeared, he pulled himself to his feet and tapped towards me on his crutches.

“What do you want, Lester?”

“I have it.” He said, his voice peppered with the noisy shaking of his inhaler.

“You have what?”

“The cameras, they’re set up.”

“Oh. Oh shit, yeah. Okay, show me.” I’d honestly kind of forgotten about all this shit lately, I’d been distracted with other thoughts, but I followed Lester through the school to the AV room. It was dark in there, barely used because the funding was cut or some shit, but I could see Lester had clearly made a little home here from the candy wrappers and other gross debris from this degenerate pig. There was a small TV set up, connected to all kinds of cables, and as soon as he pressed a button it flickered to life and on the screen was a low quality feed of the locker room. I was impressed he’d actually managed to do it, I didn’t care to ask how, he must have had some help but that wasn’t my business. My business was this. As I assumed they’d be, the football team was showering after their practice, and although there was no sound to the video, I could see in the grainy black and white picture that they were laughing and messing around, and let me tell you it was so fucking gay even _I_ felt awkward.

But not everyone. There was one guy, shorter than most of them and standing under a shower away from the rest, and as soon as my eyes found him they widened. I completely forgot about why I was even watching this when my gaze fell upon him and Jesus Christ, his fucking _body_. I knew he was chunky but… I could hardly describe it. He wasn’t really as fat as I’d assumed, he was stocky, he had a bit of a tummy but there was solid muscle to him from playing sports constantly. His hair lay flat on his head, dripping into his closed eyes, his head was dropped slightly in front of him and he was just letting the water run down his body. Not scrubbing himself and joking around like the rest of them, just standing there with one hand halfway through his sodden hair. I felt like I was suffocating, the room was suddenly ten times warmer than it had been before and I had a feeling it had something to do with Michael.

“You seem pretty interested, Trevor.”

“Fuck off, four-eyes.” My face burned at his words and I remembered he was in the room with me. There was suddenly this uncomfortable feeling I had about Lester being here and seeing Michael like this, I wanted to put my hand over him on the screen and protect his nakedness from Lester’s prying eyes, but I didn’t move, I just continued to feel weird about him seeing my friend naked, and me seeing my friend naked, but for two completely different reasons. With Lester here, I was just glad the video quality was shitty and the steam blocked out a lot of the rest because I didn’t want Michael’s privacy invaded more than it already had been. I couldn’t see his dick or anything, he was facing away from the camera, but the principle was still there, I didn’t give a shit about the privacy of the other guys. When I’d planned this I hadn’t counted on Michael being there with them, I don’t know why it hadn’t occurred to me, I just wasn’t thinking. I felt this mix of guilt and… I dunno, something _else_ that I didn’t even care about blackmailing Brad Snider anymore, it seemed like such a distant idea I’d had, irrelevant against this uncomfortable new realisation.

“Thanks, Lester. I’ll, uh, pay you in the week.” As I stood up I sloppily pressed the button on the TV to turn it off, I didn’t want him watching any longer, and I felt a bit shaky on my feet, I didn’t really know where to look so I left him in the darkened room and hurried out to the corridor. God, I really didn’t want this, if it was what I think it was, I did _not_ want to develop some kind of stupid crush on Michael Townley, and why? Because I’d seen him naked? It was so excruciatingly _preteen_ , I couldn’t stand it, it was embarrassing. I just needed to get out of this building, but the exit was all the way at the other end so I had to make my way through the entire school before I could leave, trying consistently to push that image from my head. The image of his damp body, the water running down his thick arms and solid back. _Stop_ it, Trevor, for fuck’s sake. You’ve seen sexy guys before, what is the problem here? I told myself this over and over but a part of me knew it was because of who it was. There was the tension of our newly formed friendship, how close we’d been over the last week, how much time we’d spent together, that combined with how nicely he’d been treating me and how attractive he was… seeing him naked just topped the fucking cake.

Eugh I felt sick.

I pushed the front doors open with a bang and stomped across the parking lot towards the field, nearly running into the one person I did not want to fucking speak to right now as I turned the corner.

“Trevor!”

“Oh! Hey, Mike.” My blood went cold inside me, I felt so uncomfortable seeing him in person like this, I’d seen the guy naked not ten minutes ago, and now he was standing in front of me, smiling as if nothing had happened. His hair was still a bit damp and it made my ears burn.

“You want a ride home, man?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I followed him back the way I came.

“I don’t have the car today but you can ride on the pegs of my bike.”

“So I’m riding bitch for you today?”

“Yeah, but you’re gonna have to hold on tight so hop on.” He grinned, unlocking the bike from the railings. I used his arm for balance as I climbed onto the back of his bike, my hands fit perfectly across his broad shoulders and I looked down at them. This is exactly what I didn’t need right now, I knew what these shoulders looked like without the protection of his ever-present blue letterman jacket, I could feel how solid they were, just as I’d figured from the grainy image of him in the shower, my face was getting warm again, Christ they felt nice. It was bad of me to think this because Michael was my friend, but I could hardly bear to touch him without wanting to pull his jacket off his body and touch his warm, bare skin, probably still slightly damp from the shower.

This was all so fucking sudden, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. The image of Michael in the shower was burned into the back of my eyelids, I’d always known he was attractive but this was an entirely different plane of attraction. My eyes were seeing him in a new light. This was no longer dumb old Michael Townley, this was Michael _fucking_ Townley, and here was me with some stupid infatuation like a kid with a crush, holding onto his shoulders for dear life, probably tighter than I needed to, but I had to feel him. There wasn’t a guy I’d felt this way about for… I dunno, ever. A real passionate desire that burned through my stomach and between my legs. For this moment, I was glad I was standing, if I was sitting behind him like on a motorbike, pressed up against his back with my arms around his chest... I shook my head against the wind blowing across my face, I needed to snap out of this, he had no idea what kind of things I was thinking and I intended to keep it that way. All I wanted right now was to get home and away from him and this horrible new train of thought, but at the same time I never wanted this bike ride to end.

The wheels skidded to a halt outside my trailer.

“Your stop.”

I climbed down, thankful that it was over. “Thanks, man.”

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

Michael rode off into the park and I shoved the trailer door open, slamming it behind me and pressing my back against it so hard I wanted to melt through the fucking thing. My fingers pressed heavily into my eyes, I had this under control. I knew he was attractive, and sure okay maybe I’d always been kind of attracted to him, but liking someone’s appearance and liking someone _romantically_ were two completely different ballgames. I didn’t even really like his personality that much, sure we could have a good time together, and he was the only person I’d actually enjoyed the company of in quite a few years, that didn’t mean anything though.

But as much as I tried to tell myself that, I couldn’t ignore the tingling I felt between my legs, and I’ll be the first to admit I hadn’t felt this way in a long time, I’d been beginning to think there was something wrong with me, but here I was with this growing bulge in the front of my pants and what kind of a man would I be if I ignored it?

The walk to my bedroom felt like the walk of shame, the humiliation of knowing I was about to do this, and I sat down on my bed nervously like it was my first time or some shit like that, it was definitely my first time doing this over a real fucking person that I knew and interacted with on a daily basis, which is what made it so weird. How could I face him again after this? But I pushed that thought aside in favour of shoving my grubby little hand down the front of my jeans.

I was so God damn sexually frustrated, I put my intense reaction to him down to the fact I hadn’t even touched myself in weeks, and at the feel of my fingertips my dick twitched in my pants. My eyes squeezed shut, was I really gonna do this? But even questioning myself wasn’t enough to stop my greedy hand from taking a fistful of myself and pulling upwards, earning a throaty sigh from deep within my chest. There was no going back from this.

“ _Ugh_ …” God _damn_ it, Trevor. The warm friction of my hand was unbearable, I felt like a thirteen year old boy just discovering my dick for the first time, I was on the edge already and so angry and frustrated that it was _Michael_ that caused it. How _dare_ he fucking roll into my life and make me doubt myself all over again. I’d been at peace with my sexuality for years, but this was another fucking level, I never realised I could be attracted to such a fucking _asshole_.

My other hand fisted in my sheets, fingers digging painfully into my palm even through the fabric, and I relished the pain, it made me feel alive, just like the rough fingers desperately bringing myself to this bitter ending I never knew I wanted. My eyes snapped open. Something that could make this even fucking better was lying underneath my bed and I let go of my aching dick for the first time to lean underneath and pull out this box containing lube and this stupid purple dildo I’d swiped from one of my mom’s _many_ bachelorette parties. It had been an even longer time since I’d done _this_ , and at the sight of it my heart started thudding harder, I was nervous and excited, my hands trembled when I squeezed the tube, coating it with thick gel. Some got on my fingers, which I gently pushed inside myself, forcing a new series of sounds from my throat, but it wasn’t enough, I kicked my jeans off fully and positioned the toy at the opening, my body was on fire, I was so fucking aroused that as soon as the tip was inside I felt delirious with pleasure, resuming the tight squeeze on my dick which only increased in pleasure with the residue of lube left on my hand.

The knowledge that I was alone in the trailer didn’t help to calm my loud, heavy breathing, the involuntary grunts wrenching from my body as I fucked myself, daring to allow my mind to pretend it was Michael for about half a second before deciding it was far too weird and pushing that thought away. My pace increased, the angle was awkward, but I knew how to hit my prostate and finding it was well fucking worth the effort, my hands were glued to my body, I couldn’t bear to remove either one of them to mask the desperate huffs and groans, usually I’d be embarrassed to be so unashamedly turned on like this, but my dignity was long gone. Long fucking gone. I found myself mumbling words of encouragement to myself as my hands simultaneously pulled and pushed at sensitive, burning parts of my body until, with a final scream that ripped from within me, I could feel hot come spilling over my fingers and landing on my chest. My shirt readily absorbed it, and I just kept coming, squeezing the base of my dick and pressing the head of the dildo against my prostate until the final wave of pleasure had subsided and I was left lying there, sticky and drenched in sweat, trying my hardest to return my brain to earth but it was too far gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for all the positive feedback, it's really encouraging!
> 
> Again, illustration is by me, here is the link to it on my tumblr if you want to see it full sized: http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/99009736659/
> 
> I'm going to try my hardest to include one with every chapter, but life might get in the way.
> 
> I'm having a lot of fun updating this fic, and I really appreciate your comments and kudos, so let me know what you guys think :)


	6. Defeated

Despite what he’d said, I didn’t see Michael the next day, I didn’t see him anywhere. He wasn’t in the cafeteria, he wasn’t playing football after school, his bike wasn’t chained up outside, and although I’d probably flush bright red if I saw him, I was kind of... disappointed. Confused and conflicted from what I’d allowed myself to do. Once the high had worn off and I was lying cold and defeated in my bed, that’s when the nausea set in, it had made it all too real, I didn’t want to have some growing crush on Michael but here it was, and now this had happened I couldn’t even deny it to myself. The only thing I knew was that he could never find out, no one could find out, whether people whispered behind my back about me being gay or not was none of my concern, but if _this_ got out, if there was a face to my homosexual leanings, and if it was _Michael_ , there would be no mercy. I wasn’t scared of them, I wasn’t scared of anything, but even I knew that it would be too much to live with day in and day out. My life was fine as it was, being ignored by everyone suited me perfectly, I’m not sure I’d be so happy with constant negative attention.

I’d thrown my sticky shirt across the room like a disease, scrubbed my skin raw in the shower, thinking about it too deeply made my head hurt, what I needed was to get really fucking drunk and forget the whole thing ever happened. For the entire evening I wallowed in my pit, sloshing beer into my pathetic body and staring at the TV, and when I hadn’t been able to find him the next day at school my hung-over, useless brain told me it was because he knew, somehow he knew what I did. Because of that fear in my gut I didn’t go in on Wednesday, if Michael knew, everyone would know, besides, if I stayed home again I could spend the whole day drinking once more and hopefully destroy enough of my brain that I’d forget Michael even existed.

There was tapping at my window. I looked at the clock, it was almost midnight, it couldn’t be anything, just my mind playing mean tricks on me, trying to get me to sit up, well that wasn’t gonna fuckin’ happen, I thought sourly through another mouthful of warm beer.

There it was again. My head really wanted to fuck with me tonight, I pulled myself up and yanked back the curtain, and where I expected to see darkness, I saw Michael’s face. My clumsy, drunken fingers pushed the window open and I was just opening my mouth to ask where he’d been and what he was doing here but I noticed he was holding his eye and there was blood beneath his fingernails and he looked pretty fucking dejected.

“Hey man, can I come in?”

“Mike? What happened to your eye?” It was hard to speak properly, but seeing him like this had sobered me slightly.

“Don’t worry about it, I just had a fight with my dad.”

I moved back so he could climb through the window onto my bed, his shoes had some snow on but I didn’t really care about that, I cared about the fact his eye was red and purple and swollen shut, he was still cupping it gently with his hand, wincing when the movement of climbing inside jolted him, sending pain through his face. There was more blood around his nose, but most of it had been wiped away by his sleeves.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I asked as he pulled off his shoes. My beer was still on the nightstand so I handed it to him and he drank deeply.

“I’m fine, I just needed some space from him. Sorry I woke you.”

“No, I wasn’t asleep.” Michael flopped back against my pillow, sighing a little bit through his nose and closing his eyes, well, closing the other eye to match the first. “Why did he hit you?”

He shrugged.

“I was sick yesterday so I took the day off and he didn’t like that because I was missing practice, and we were arguing about school and me not doing as well as he wants me to in football, and I dunno, he just sees me as one big disappointment.” Michael’s voice was quiet. I lay down beside him. “Seriously though, I’m okay, I’ve had worse. It’s just nice to be able to go somewhere rather than just walk around in the dark like I’ve done in the past.”

“Well, Mikey, you can always come here.”

“Thanks Trev.” He sighed again. I could barely make him out in the darkness but he looked sad. I mean, that was understandable, but he looked sad beyond the fact he’d just been punched in the face. “Trevor I wish I could be you, for a day at least.”

I barked a laugh. “No you don’t, man.”

“I do. No one expects you to do anything, and I mean this in the nicest way, but I want that, I want that freedom.” There were a few moments where he didn’t speak and the silence was deafening between us, but he opened his mouth and continued. “I’ve never told anyone this, but I’m so depressed all the time. Sometimes it’s the most I can do to even pull myself out of bed. My dad doesn’t help.” His voice was quiet as he spoke, and for once I didn’t want to make some kind of joke at his expense, I just listened to him. “No one knows, it’s not something I can talk about to anyone. Playing football and stuff distracts me but it’s when I’m not doing anything, or when I’m with the guys that it creeps up on me. I’m so sick of being something I don’t want to be, having to be in the public eye all the time, hanging out with brainless morons I can’t even have a real conversation with. Not about anything I care about, anyway. Everything is sports with them, they don’t care about things I like, like movies. As if I could talk to them about my interests. They act like we’re friends but they couldn’t give a shit about me. I’m sick of it. I’m sick of having to be this guy. _The_ guy. Everything expects things from me, and I just… I wish I could trade places with you.”

“Fuck ‘em Mikey, fuck ‘em all. Just be who you wanna be! You don’t have to follow their rules if you don’t want to.”

Michael shook his head.

“I do. It’s not that easy for me, I’m so… I dunno, insecure, I hate the attention but I need the validation, I need people to tell me I’m okay. That I’m not just a fuck up like my dad thinks I am.”

“You aren’t a fuck up. I’m a fuck up. Shit, Mike, you’re on top. Whether you want to be there or not, you fuckin’ made it man, that doesn’t seem like fucking up to me.”

Michael shrugged and our faces were so damn close in the darkness of my room, only illuminated by the muted TV, I could have easily pushed myself forward and kissed him, but I actually felt… nervous. I don’t know how aware he was of my proximity to him, all I knew was that my heart was thudding in my chest. My stupid drunken brain was telling me to do things that I knew weren’t a good idea, but it was getting harder to push the thoughts away. I prayed I didn’t accidentally blurt out some stupid shit, or tell him what I’d done over him, I just needed to keep my mouth shut. He carelessly kind of reached for my hand and gave it a little squeeze.

“Thanks, T, for listening to me and stuff. This isn’t really something I’ve ever talked about before, and being able to get it off my chest is just…” Michael exhaled and ran his other hand through his hair, I noticed he hadn’t let go of mine yet. “It’s a relief, y’know?”

“No problem.”

God I felt like garbage, lying there with his hand resting on mine, believing that anything more could ever happen between us. I _hated_ how pathetic I was. If he knew what I’d done in this bed two nights ago he’d punch me in the face and never come back.

“It’s nice to be able to talk to someone for once. As myself, not this act I put on.”

“You don’t have to act around me.” I mumbled, frowning to myself as soon as I’d said it. The beer numbed my ability to stop myself from saying stupid shit and I inwardly cursed myself for it.

“Trevor, man, I know it hasn’t been long but you really are a good friend. That means a lot to me.” He said, rubbing the side of his head against mine. “People really underestimate you.”

“Good. I don’t want people even thinking about me. Especially not _nice thoughts_ , gross.” Michael laughed quietly, I could just about see his smile in the darkness, that smile made my chest ache and my face burn. It took everything in my power to resist him. I rubbed my face hard. “Sorry, I’m really drunk I’m talking shit.”

“It’s cool, don’t worry about it. I wish I was drunk, I don’t wanna think about my fuckin’ dad anymore.”

“We have some more beers in the kitchen if you don’t wanna drink my warm backwash.”

The bed didn’t feel so sunken when Michael stood up, but I missed his weight beside me despite not being gone for long. Through the slightly open door I could hear him open the fridge and open up a new bottle of beer, there was a thin sliver of light that crept into my room from the living room but it was quickly blocked by Michael’s large body before he closed the door again and joined me back on my bed.

“Is that your mom asleep on the sofa?” He asked after a sip.

“Probably.”

“She looks nice.”

“She isn’t.” He didn’t respond to that, just sank further against my pillows and pressed the cool bottle against his eye. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah, this is nothing.”

“You’ve got some blood still under your nose.”

“Oh.” He scrubbed at it with his already bloody sleeve. “Better?”

“Yeah.”

His head inclined towards the silent TV. “What are you watching?”

“Nothing, I wasn’t really watching anything before you showed up. I just like to have it on.”

“You mind if I do?”

“Go ahead.”

Michael sat up again and adjusted the volume until it was at a low mumble we could both hear, but that wouldn’t disturb my mom, there was a late night rerun of _The A-Team_ that he settled on and collapsed beside me once more. There was a quiet sloshing as he drank and then rested the bottle on his tummy. With two of us in the bed, there wasn’t really much room, but when he’d arrived neither of us were thinking about how comfortable it was, I just wanted him to feel better and he just wanted to get out of the snow, now we were lying here though, it was a bit tight, and Michael was a big guy. One of my arms was pressed against the wall, but you know, I didn’t really mind. I took a risk and rested my head against his shoulder but he didn’t seem to notice or care, moving closer to him definitely made up for the lack of room, and I found my eyes growing increasingly heavy, I was so comfortable and he was warm, radiating thick heat off his body which I consumed greedily and fell asleep against him.

An arm was pressed against my back when I woke up and for like 2 seconds it freaked me out because I’d forgotten he was even here. I’d rolled away from him in the night and I immediately corrected that by turning back to face him, he’d taken off his jacket, and I could feel the warmth of his bare arm against mine, I brushed the soft, downy hairs with the back of my fingers and kept my eyes trained on his face. He was so God damn cute. It wasn’t fair, why did I have to be punished like this, ‘just friends’ with probably the most attractive person who’d ever deign to speak to me, and although I wasn’t drunk anymore I still found it painfully hard not to put my hand on his cheek and kiss the fuckin’ shit out of him. I didn’t though, I just glanced over him at the clock and nudged him.

“Mike. Wake up.”

He dragged a heavy hand over his face.

“What time is it?”

“Time to go to class.”

“Can’t we skip?” His voice was croaky from sleep and he rolled away from me.

“Believe me, of all people I’d be the first to suggest we skip but I have a meeting thing, and I kinda get into deep shit if I don’t go.” I said, climbing over him to go to the bathroom, trying to shake myself into a better state of consciousness with the cold air of my trailer. Winter was really starting to hit and our lack of central heating proved that. After I’d had a piss I started to brush my teeth and Michael had the nerve to follow me into the bathroom and unzip his jeans.

“Sorry, bud. Gotta piss.”

If he had any clue how hard it was to keep my eyes on my reflection he wouldn’t be torturing me like this. Or maybe he would. Maybe he’d think my little crush was some huge joke. What a fuckin’ dick. He flushed and shoved me aside to wash his hands and adjust his hair, his fingers delicately touched the bruise surrounding his eye, and I made a point not to bring it up.

“I can give you a ride on my bike again if you want. I don’t think my dad would like me going to get the car today.”

“Sure.” I pushed him back out of the way to spit in the sink. His bike was outside my trailer, resting against the porch and honestly I was surprised it hadn’t been boosted already, but I climbed on behind him like I’d done the other day and we rode through the slowly falling snow to school.

I wasn’t lying when I’d told him I had a meeting. Every Thursday they expected me to meet up with the school counsellor, Dr Friedlander, to get my shit together. I wasn’t exactly happy about the situation but it was either this or class and I know which I’d rather do.

“Trevor. Nice to see you.”

“Yeah, you too, doc.” I flopped down in the chair opposite his desk.

“How has your week been since I last saw you?”

“You know. Same old.” Same old painful realisation that I wanted to bone my friend.

“Okay, that’s good.” He flipped through some of the progress sheets he kept about me. “How has your anger management been going? Have you been using the coping methods we talked about?”

I shrugged with one shoulder. “Yeah. Y’know, it’s been… fine.” I’d actually been trying my hardest since that fight with Brad, but I would never tell anyone that, especially not him. I wasn’t doing it for him, I was doing it for myself, for my own benefit. It was the most difficult thing I’d ever done.

“You know it’s only to help _you_ , Trevor. By learning to manage your feelings now, you will cope better once you’ve left school. We talked about the flight school, they won’t let you in if they don’t trust you to keep your head.”

“I know that!” I snapped, the expression he gave me pissed me off even further but I had to grit my teeth and try to relax myself. It hadn’t even been my intention to get mad at him, but my mouth just runs away from me - that was what he was talking about though, so I exhaled heavily through my nose and let my eyebrows return to their normal position. I didn’t want to prove him right. “I know.”

“So other than managing your anger, what about how you’ve been feeling the rest of the time.” I didn’t tell him I was depressed as hell about Michael and just shrugged again. “Trevor, this would benefit you a lot more if you engaged with our sessions. I can’t help you much if you stay quiet.”

“Well you know how I feel about _help_.” I grunted.

“We have a long way to go ahead of us, if you want to graduate, it depends on your participation in these sessions. So I suggest you make the most of it while you can because before you know it, you won’t have the support system we have here.”

“I don’t _need_ a ‘support system’, what I need is to get out of this place as fast as possible.”

“And to do that, you need to cooperate with what we’re trying to do here.”

“Sure, fine, whatever.”

How could I possibly cooperate with his stupid ‘schemes’ and ‘programs’ and ‘support system’ bullshit when I knew from the bottom of my black fucking heart that it was all bullshit. I didn’t care about graduating, but I knew if I flunked it would hurt my chances of getting into flight school, and that was all I was living for right now.

 

It was becoming a more consistent thing that Michael would make his way over to my place at the weekends and I can’t say I didn’t like it, I liked it so much so that I’d actually started to wake up early and head into the living room to watch TV while I waited for him. This thing, this _crush_ on him wasn’t getting any easier. Spending time with him was nice, but it just made the ache inside me worse, I wanted him so badly, I wanted anything, even if it was just holding his fucking hand, I needed affection from this kid.

Around ten o’clock on a Sunday morning was when he arrived with his usual heavy-handed knocking, my tummy gave this embarrassing jolt when I heard it, the worst thing would be to answer the door looking like I was especially happy to see him, so I fixed my face before I opened it.

“I gotta show you something.” He looked so fucking pleased with himself, I smirked.

“Okay, Michael, but I’m not putting anything in my mouth.”

“Shut the fuck up and get outside.” He pushed me and I relished the feeling of his hands on me, I made vulgar jokes because it was the only way I knew how to deal with my feelings but honestly I just kind of wanted to kiss him. I’d never really wanted that before, the romantic stuff, I mean, but Michael did something to me, it made me sappy and dumb inside and I hated it. I fucking _despised_ it.

Sitting outside beside my porch was a bike, and I don’t mean a bicycle. It was a moped, a pretty nice one too, red like his bicycle and showing off a label that read ‘Honda Aero 80’.

“Nice. Where’d you get it?”

“A guy I know was selling it, I got it cheap because it has a busted speedometer, but I can easily replace that.”

“Are you sure? Or do you mean you’re gonna get me to replace it because you don’t know shit about vehicles.” I looked back at him over my shoulder and smiled.

“I can do it, you dick. She’s a beaut though, right? Fuckin’ A!”

“Yeah.”

Michael came up behind me and slapped me on the back. “So should we give her a go?”

“Okay, sure, where do you wanna go?”

“You wanna go to the mall? I could finally kick your ass at _Street Fighter_?”

“You wish, Townley, you fucking wish.” I said, climbing on behind him. Sitting on the moped with him was a lot more… I dunno, _intimate_ than standing behind him on the bike like we usually did, my chest was pressed against his back. He was warm. Automatically, my hands affixed themselves to his shoulders as they’d always done, but he looked over his shoulder after a moment of hesitation.

“Are you sure you don’t want to like, hold around my waist? I don’t want you to fall off and break your neck.”

“Haha sure, whatever, man.” Just keep your voice casual, Trevor. I was just glad he couldn’t see my burning face as I wrapped my arms around him. Jesus this was awkward. I mean, I was the one making it awkward by being weird about it, so it was only awkward to me. Michael probably didn’t even think about it.

What I can tell you is that I’m not religious but the only thing I’ve ever prayed for in my life is that I didn’t pop a boner while clinging to Michael at 40mph. If that happened I’d probably have to just let go and submit myself to the traffic behind us because I’d never be able to face him again that was for damn sure.

We parked the bike out the front of the mall and headed upstairs to the arcade. I found myself briefly wondering what Michael would do if we ran into any of his friends here, but I forgot all about that when he handed me a cup full of quarters he’d just gotten changed.

“You didn’t have to change this much.”

He shrugged. “If I’m gonna kick your ass once I want to do it over and over again.”

“Yeah, yeah, I hear you talking shit but I don’t see any action.” We taunted each other all the way over to the _Street Fighter_ machine, and the first coin went into the slot.

I may be too poor to buy my own rounds at the arcade, but I was incredibly good at hanging around waiting for some kids to take their eyes off their cup of change just long enough for me to swipe it, and that’s exactly what I did when Michael ran out of money. I may have underestimated how fuckin’ good he was at this game, I mean, I was good because I spend a lot of time here stealing money to play, but I’d naively assumed Michael was too busy socialising to get good at arcade games. Boy was I wrong. We were neck and neck, I didn’t even know what round we were on, I was too busy focusing on kicking the shit out of his character while he did the same to mine, and although usually I would be furious at being beaten as many times as I had been, I was making up for it with my own successes, and honestly at this point it was far too interesting having an opponent as worthy as myself for me to lose my temper over it. Our passionate rivalry had attracted a small crowd of people, some on my side, some on Michael’s, I didn’t care that they were there, but the attention meant that when finally I landed one last punch in Michael’s pixelated face and won the fucking game, I wasn’t free to steal more money.

I stared at the screen flashing ‘Player 2 wins’ with slight disbelief. Michael clapped me on the shoulder.

“Good job, man.”

“I won?”

“Yeah. You know, I really wasn’t expecting you to be so good.”

“I fucking won.” I turned to him. “In your fucking _face_ , Townley! Haha!”

“Yeah, you beat me.”

“You think you’re so fucking great! But I fucking _kicked your ass._ ” I hissed, pointing right in his face.

“T, chill. You’re right, you kicked my ass.” But I couldn’t chill, despite him looking at me with kind of a wary expression, and seeing him look at me that way, the way everyone looks at me when they’re expecting me to explode, it really fuckin’ hurt. To have Michael look at me cautiously like that, like I was some kind of wild animal, it crushed me, my elation was instantly replaced by dejection, and I leaned against the machine and sank.

“Sorry.” I mumbled. Suddenly Michael was right there, putting his hands on my shoulders and patting me in that kind of masculine buddy-buddy ‘no-homo’ kinda way.

“Hey, no, don’t sweat it. Do you wanna get outta here? Get some air? I’m kinda overheating in here.”

“Yeah, sure.” I shrugged, following him out of the arcade, I kept my eyes on his shoes. There really was nothing I could do right, was there? I had to fucking _ruin_ everything by taking it too far. I’m a fucking _asshole_. I wanted to slam my head into the wall and have Michael leave me here to die, but he didn’t, he stuck with me until we were outside in the weak winter sun.

“I want to get a soda, do you mind?” He asked, nodding towards the Target across the street. I shrugged again and mumbled an acknowledgement, following him once again. I think Michael could see how defeated I felt, I’d beaten him at that dumb game but I’d let my stupid brain get the better of me and given him yet another glimpse into my temper, something that, when I was with Michael, I felt surprisingly ashamed of. Never before had I regretted my actions like this, I didn’t care if someone saw me flip my lid over nothing, with Michael though? All I wanted was for him to like me, and that’s probably why I backed down so easily.

The food part of the store was on the opposite side to where we’d entered, so we trailed through the thin crowds to get Michael his drink, but rather than getting one to take to the check-out he headed for the vending machines, vending machines that happened to be next to a few shelves of candy bars. My hand slipped from my pocket and was back inside before you could blink, Michael was still deciding on what he wanted so he hadn’t noticed. Not that I’d care if he noticed me shoplifting but regardless, he hadn’t seen. The second time was different however. He turned to me, drink in hand just in time to see me pocket another chocolate bar and his eyes skittered around the immediate area nervously.

“You can’t do that.”

“You telling me what I can and can’t do now?”

“Trevor, what if you get caught?”

“I thought you wanted to be a part of this. I thought you wanted some fuckin’ excitement in your life.”

His mouth flapped open but no response came out, he couldn’t even come up with some moral answer to shoot back at me because I was right, he knew I was right, and he swiped a pack of gum while our eyes were still locked. I smiled. My gloomy mood had lifted and I was filled with the wonderful exhilaration that only came with stealing, to top it all off, his mouth stretched into a devious fucking grin that made my heart flip and my crotch tingle and I glanced over my shoulder to the nearest aisle, bursting with bottles of alcohol. There was a significant ‘are you thinking what I’m thinking?’ moment between us seconds before heading there in complete sync with one another. We were teenagers, we knew what we wanted, and that was hard fuckin’ liquor.

I don’t know if Michael was still nervous about being caught, but he managed to keep his composure until we were well out of the store, which was when he burst out with exhilarated laughter.

“Fuck that felt so _good_.”

“I knew you’d feel that way.” I smirked, pulling the bottle of whiskey out of my jacket pocket and taking a deep swallow from it, it burned my throat in a thoroughly pleasant way but Michael held his hand up when I offered it to him.

“Nah, I still have to get us home. Later.”

I shrugged and swallowed some more as we headed for his bike.

 “Hey, y’know, I have a football game this Friday. You should stop by and see me play.”

“Mikey, are you asking me to be your cheerleader?” I’d not eaten today and I drank too fast because my head was already swimming and I found myself leaning on his shoulder in this false romantic way. False to him, that is, in my brain I was dying to cling to him more.

“Dude, if you wanna put on a little dress and wave some pom-poms for me, be my guest.”

“We’ll see, Michael. We’ll see.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, I am SO sorry this took so long, I've been caught up with university work and other boring responsibilities and this got pushed to the end of my priorities. I'm hoping that my updates will be slightly more frequent from now on but either way thank you for your patience! I've had some really really great feedback from you guys, it's so lovely to hear from you, so please make sure you leave a comment telling me what you think, I appreciate them all. The next chapter shouldn't take a month like this one did, and I think you guys will definitely like what is coming up ;)
> 
> Once again, illustration by me. Link to full size on my tumblr: http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/102242744554/wow-look-another-illustration-from-my-fanfic-which  
> A reblog/like certainly wouldn't go amiss <3
> 
> So yeah, send me an ask or leave a comment here if you want to tell me your thoughts, I really do appreciate it. Also please feel free to message me telling me to get off my ass and UPDATE THIS THING.


	7. A few things to straighten out

I don’t know why I’d agreed to go watch his game, I didn’t care about football at all, I never cared much about any sport. I’d played hockey as a kid in Canada, but that pastime ended abruptly with an incident I still swear was an accident, but I hadn’t played since. Football though, that was another thing altogether, as far as I could tell it was just a bunch of dudes running around in tight pants grabbing each other’s cocks, and I can respect that.

Before the game I headed out to the field, which was slowly filling with people, I’d never actually been to a school game before, there was another high school visiting to play our team but none of them were out, they were probably still in the locker rooms, Michael however was out on the pitch, wearing his football shirt with none of the padding underneath, and he looked so fucking good in it that it made my face burn. But he was standing there talking to one of the cheerleaders, a brunette girl, not unattractive, but that just made it worse, when I saw them chatting and smiling like that, I couldn’t hold back the scowl that ripped its way from my chest onto my face. Whether or not Michael would ever be interested in someone like me didn’t negate the fact that I didn’t want him to be interested in someone _else_.

Then there was the dilemma of whether or not I should make myself known to him. I didn’t want him to think I was eager to please him or anything, but the truth was that I _did_ want to please him. I wanted him to be happy to see that I’d come to support him. But as I stood there considering my next move, he glanced up and spotted me anyway, waving me over.

God how embarrassing to be seen standing there watching him. The cheerleader left to join her team as I approached, Michael wouldn’t wipe this stupid grin off his face.

“Hey, man, you came!”

“I did.”

“No dress and pom-poms?”

“Sorry, the dresses are for my eyes only.”

He laughed and glanced over his shoulder to the coach.

“Okay, well, I gotta go finish getting ready, I’ll see you after?”

“Yeah, sure. Good luck and shit.” I said, patting his shoulder in that socially acceptable masculine way and letting him jog across the field to the team locker room. I refused to sit in the bleachers with the rest of this dumb school, and made myself at home underneath them, I had a clear view of the field, but I could also sit and read my flight book. I hadn’t done that in a while and I needed to get caught up on it.

The bleachers above me rumbled as people started to stand up and cheer for the North Yankton team as they came jogging out onto the slushy field. Michael raised his hands above his head in this arrogant way to absorb all the cheering and I couldn’t help but smile at it, he was such a dick but it was great.

I didn’t really know much about American football, so throughout the game all I saw when I looked at the field was a bunch of guys running about. Actually, correction, all I saw was _one specific_ guy running about, the rest was all a blur to me. His name was on the back of his shirt, along with the huge number 5, so he was easy to identify among the rest. He seemed to be really good at what he did, too. I wasn’t really the person to ask about whether or not someone qualifies as being ‘good’ at sports, but Michael honestly seemed to know what the fuck he was doing, and watching him was kind of mesmerising if I’m honest.

He won the game, not that anyone didn’t see that coming, he looked so fucking happy about it, tugging his helmet off as people surrounded him, patting him on the back and hugging him. I hovered by the bleachers, which were now almost empty, watching the scene in front of me. I didn’t belong over there, I belonged on the side-lines like I’d always been, but when the cheerleader he’d been talking to earlier ran over and flung her arms around his neck to kiss him on the cheek, I couldn’t ignore the heavy rock in my chest. What I wouldn’t give to be that person. I was too sad about it to even really feel bitterness towards her, my heart just kind of hurt and that was something I’d have to get used to.

When the crowd dispersed a bit, he finally spotted me, hanging back away from the action, and pushed his way through towards me.

“We won!” He exclaimed, giving me this big hug. We’d never hugged before and he smelled like sweat and deodorant and grass, and releasing him was the worst.

“You were really good out there, well done, Mikey.”

But even in his elated mood, he couldn’t miss the dejected tone in my voice.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I’m just tired.”

“Okay, well let me go get changed and I’ll walk home with you. Wait here.” He jogged off to the locker room, I sat on the bleachers while I waited for him. Accepting that we’d never be together was a really fucking difficult task. Being with Michael was the only thing my brain could focus on, it was painfully important to me, and until today, seeing him with that girl, it hadn’t even occurred to me that someone else could want him too. Just imagining him being in a relationship with another person and still having to spend time around him made my head hurt just as much as my chest.

“Ready?”

I looked up, he was standing there in his regular clothes with his hands in his pockets. I hadn’t even heard him come over.

“Yeah.” We walked off the pitch together towards the road, God damn it I really wanted to hold his hand right now.

“I don’t have my bike with me, Dave gave me a ride here.” I grimaced at his name and Michael nudged me. “Come on, Trev, Dave’s not so bad.”

“Forgive me if I don’t agree with you.”

“Okay, well, he’s not as bad as the rest. I can actually stand to be around him.” He paused for a moment. “Thank you for coming tonight, you didn’t have to.”

I shrugged.

“We’re like, friends, y’know. It’s okay.”

“Yeah, well, I know you’re not too interested in football.”

“It’s not so excruciatingly boring when I have a reason to watch.” God, that sounded so fucking gay but he didn’t seem to notice, and in the moments of silence that followed I noticed something myself. Something missing. “Shit.”

“What?”

“I left my bag under the bleachers.”

“Oh, I can go back with you if you want?”

“Nah, you go ahead, it won’t take me long. See you tomorrow though?”

“Yeah, for sure.” He smiled and slapped me on the shoulder, and the two of us parted. I walked back to the pitch, which still had the buzz of energy around it, slush crunching underneath my feet as I made my way across.

My bag was exactly where I left it, which was kind of a relief, I mean, aside from my flight book it only had school shit in it but I didn’t have the energy to be punished for losing all my work, I really did not. Fuckin’ trust me to leave it though, I was looking forward to walking home with Michael, especially after the bitterness I felt before about him talking to that girl, and the sadness when she kissed him, I didn’t have a right to be bitter, he didn’t belong to me, but that didn’t stop the sourness in the pit of my gut.

“Well look who it is.” That horribly familiar voice was right behind me and I was not in the mood for this.

“What, Brad?”

He wasn’t alone this time, but he wasn’t with the entire team either. He was standing there with Steve Haines, the only fucker I hated more than Brad. The two of them were looking at me like I was a mouse in a snake pit and all I could think about was how this scene felt uncomfortably familiar. But this time, Michael wasn’t here to intervene, Michael was probably halfway home by now, it was just me, Brad, and Steve, and before I could even think about leaving, Brad had my arms behind my back and Steve’s ugly face was in my own. Brad wasn’t smart enough to plan something like this, but Steve sure was.

“Looks like your little pal isn’t here this time to save you.” He said quietly.

“I don’t need saving, especially not from Michael.”

“You think Mike wants to be friends with you? It’s a fucking bet you pathetic little shit. Mike hates you just like the rest of us. We laugh about you when you’re not around, he loves it.”

“No he fucking doesn’t.”

“What, you got a little crush on him or something you fucking faggot?” Brad’s voice felt sour on my neck and I struggled against him, but it was no good, he was too big and I had no energy left from the minimal breakfast I’d eaten that day.

“Do you really think you know anything about him? He hates you, kid, he fucking hates you. You should have heard him in the locker room before the game, talking about how he told you to come and you actually showed up like the desperate little loser you are. He knows we’re here, he knows you’re here, this was his idea.”

Again, I struggled against Brad’s unpleasantly warm grip and scowled. That wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

Could it?

Michael _had_ invited me. Why would they know that?

“Go fuck yourselves. Or each other. Just stay the fuck away from me.”

Steve’s fist connected with my cheekbone, catching me way off guard. It left me reeling for a moment, I could feel some blood running slowly down my cheek and I noticed he was wearing two rings like the douchebag he was. The blood was warm compared to the freezing air, he smirked at the sight of it, punching me again in the face. I couldn’t even try to defend myself with my arms forced behind me, so I just had to let it happen. One of my back teeth felt loose, blood was filling my mouth so I spat it on Steve’s shoes, he wasn’t too happy about that because he punched me in the stomach, I doubled over in pain, which Brad responded to with a heavy knee in my back. This was too fucking much, it hurt for me to breathe and my stomach felt like it was going to cave in on itself, I wasn’t in the best shape of my life, so it’s not like I had rock hard abs to protect me either.

My arms were suddenly free, and with one more punch to my face, I fell on my ass into the snow, I could see some blood splattered around me, but I wasn’t left there for long, Brad’s fists pulled me back up to my feet, and Steve raised another to slug me again, I braced myself but their fists were gone, they were being pulled off me by some mysterious force. Brad dropped me back down, sending a painful jolt all the way to my nose, which was absolutely killing me.

No, it wasn’t a mysterious force, it was two freshmen, one of them being the guy who nearly got hit in the face by the bread roll aimed at me a while back.

“Do we have a problem here?” The tall one asked, eye to eye with Steve Haines, who, despite being a few years older, was the same height as this kid. They just stood in front of me, still on my fuckin’ ass in the snow nursing my bloody nose, and stared at the other two. Steve snorted after a moment.

“Fuck this.” He said, walking away across the pitch with Brad on his heels. The two kids turned to me and the shorter one stuck out a hand to pull me to my feet. It was pretty damn ballsy of them to do that, considering they were younger than Brad and Steve, and I couldn’t help but feel shame at being saved by a couple of kids.

“You okay, man?”

“I didn’t need your help, I was handling it.” I growled through the hand cupping my bleeding face.

“Bullshit, you were getting your ass beat, homie.”

“Okay, well thanks, _homie_. But I can take care of myself.” This still all sounded uncomfortably fucking familiar, I was sick of having people come to my damn rescue like I was some delicate maiden. I’d rather have the life beaten out of me than this.

“You okay to get home?”

“I got jumped, I’m not a frail princess. I’m fine. Thanks.” I added after a second, because despite my bruised pride, I did kind of appreciate them getting involved like that. I’d never admit it though.

“You one wild motherfucker, but cool, whatever you say dog.”

I grabbed my bag from where I’d dropped it in the snow and walked as best I could the rest of the way across the field. My head was still spinning a bit when I’d reached the trailer park, but all I could think about was confronting Michael, that sneaky son of a bitch. I had to know if they were telling the truth, I had to know if he planned this. I had to know if he hated me. But on top of all that I just wanted to collapse in his arms and have him take care of me. I was so damn tired.

It reminded me of the other week when his dad punched him and he came to my place seeking solace, except this time the tables were turned, I was the one needing a bit of care. It didn’t seem to be an option in my brain to go straight home, I needed to see him, I needed to clear some shit up. There was no way for me to know if his dad would be in so I went round to his bedroom window and knocked on that like he had done to mine, the light was on, so I knew he was in there, and when his face appeared from behind the curtain my stomach did a violent flip. He threw the window open.

“Holy shit, what the fuck happened to you?” His eyes were wide and I couldn’t think about anything except how blue they were, so pale, the colour of steel and just as sharp. Was he faking? Only one way to find out.

“Your best fuckin’ pals happened to me.”

“ _What_?” He helped me through the window because I still felt kinda stiff and shitty, and the touch of his hand on mine made me burn.

“They, uh, had a few things to straighten out with me when I went back.”

“Are you fucking serious? Ugh! I’m so fucking… What the _fuck_ do they think they’re doing?” His foot connected with the table beside his bed, which rattled violently, two fists hung by his sides.

I coughed and it hurt my ribs. “I’m okay, just get me something to drink to take the edge off.”

He reached under his bed and brought out one of the bottles he’d stolen the other day at Target, it was strong and sour in my mouth and exactly what I needed.

“Woah there, fella.” He said, taking the bottle from me, I’d been gulping it down and hadn’t even noticed, a third was gone already. I burped. “Seriously, I am so fucking angry right now.”

“Yeah, I can tell.”

“I’m going to go find them, right now, stay here. Who was it?”

“Don’t fuckin bother they aren’t worth it. I’m fine.”

“UGH!” He picked up the table and shattered it against the wall, I leaned back slightly away from the splintered wood that rained down between us. There was silence except for his heavy breathing and a slight wheezing from my nose whenever I exhaled. I broke the silence.

“They said you’re only friends with me for a bet.” I mumbled. That part had been eating deeply at me, I’d said to them that it wasn’t true but… what did I really know about him? Not that much in the wider picture. He whipped around to face me, fist still at his sides and this expression of incredulity on his face. “They said you planned this.”

“A what?” He snapped.

“Is that true?” I asked quietly, locking my eyes with his and looking for any trace of a lie. “Is this a bet?” I wanted to also ask if I was just making an ass of myself by being here but I held my tongue.

“No! Jesus, Trevor, of course it’s not true!”

“Are you completely sure about that?”

“Are you seriously fucking asking me that?” There was this horrible tone of disappointment and anger in his voice that I didn’t ever want to hear directed at me again. “Are you seriously asking if all this was some fucking high school prank, when I’ve spilled my fucking guts out to you? You really think I’m gonna pretend to be friends with you and then tell you about the most vulnerable fucking parts of me? Do you really think that little of me Trevor!?”

“No!”

“Then why are you asking me that bullshit?”

“Because when two people you’ve been friends with for years tell me, someone you’ve known for a few weeks, that you hate me, that you laugh about me with them, what am I supposed to think?”

His demeanour softened slightly but he was still upset with me. He sat down next to me heavily.

“You should have trusted me.”

I leaned over him to pick the bottle up from where he’d put it on the floor, relishing how he smelled, and drank another large mouthful.

“Trust isn’t exactly my strong point. I’ve never had like… I dunno, fuckin’ friends before.” My ears burned with how lame I sounded, which I remedied with more whiskey. Again, Michael took the bottle from me but this time it was to bring it to his own mouth.

“God, what a fuckin’ mess.”

“You got that right.”

“Are you ok, though, T? You look pretty beat up. Do you need anything?” For the first time in several minutes I thought about the fact my nose was dripping blood into my mouth and I dragged my sleeve across my face.

“If I can drink and have some company while doing it I’ll be fine.”

“Deal.”

Michael informed me that his dad wasn’t actually home like I thought he might be, so after I cleaned myself up in his bathroom, the two of us moved into the living room, which had more space than his bedroom, and we watched TV well into the evening, slowly getting more and more intoxicated, moving from the first bottle to another, and then some beers. It was nearly Halloween, so there were some horror flicks showing, but watching them drunk removed a hell of a lot of the fear, I think it was about ten o’clock when we started watching _Carrie_. I wasn’t much of a reader but I was pretty into Stephen King stuff, I’d never seen this before though.

“She’s cute.” He mumbled, pointing the neck of his beer at the bitchy antagonist, I shrugged.

“She’s okay.”

“You don’t think she’s cute?”

“I dunno, man, she’s okay.” I punctuated my words with a sip. “She’s too skinny.”

“You like girls with some meat on their bones? Yeah, I can dig that.”

I turned towards him, dropping my empty beer bottle on the table and smirking in this way I never intended to, I must have been pretty fucking wasted because when I opened my mouth this awful, embarrassing sentence came out but I couldn’t even comprehend how shameful it was at the time.

“I like guys with some meat on their bones.”

“Oh yeah, sure, you’re into guys aren’t you.” He said as if he’d forgotten, my head was so fucking cloudy, my tongue felt like a dead weight inside my mouth but still it managed to form the next terrible thing I said. My hand, also weighed down by the pressure of being out of my God damn mind, lifted of its own accord and rested on Michael’s leg, they were spread slightly anyway and he seemed to swallow when he realised what I’d just done, eyes flitting down and then back up towards my face.

“I like it a lot.” There was no response from Michael this time, he seemed surprised at how close my face was to him, but there was no recoil, no attempt to escape, just quiet curiosity at what I was saying. Between the alcohol and the heat generated from our breath mixing, the atmosphere was so fucking heady and my brain was swimming, my spine was tingling. “D’you know what I mean?”

“Haha what the fuck are you talking about, man?” His voice was throaty. I had a feeling the laugh was forced because he wasn’t smiling.

“You knoooow what I’m talking about, Mikey boy.” I retaliated with a smile of my own, bringing my hand up his body from his leg to his shoulder, Michael’s breath hitched nervously, he blinked rapidly and tried to turn away from me, but with uncharacteristically fast reactions for someone as wasted as I was, my hand palmed the side of his head and pulled his face roughly back towards mine so that I could crush my lips against his. A thousand physical reactions were running through me at once, my throat was dry, my palms were wet, my head was spinning trying to wrap itself around the fact I’d just kissed Michael and he wasn’t pulling away. He didn’t do anything. Neither of us moved, we were just sitting there, his face in my hand and his dry lips pressed against mine. I think I might have lost consciousness for a moment, and I think he might have done the same because it was after a delay of a few seconds that he tore his face away from mine and buried it in his hands, not in a gentle way though, his fingers made claws around his skull and in his hair.

There wasn’t even enough capacity in my mind to be ashamed of myself right now, I just stared at him hazily until he lifted his eyes to the ceiling, both hands over his mouth. Then… his eyes flicked back to me, sitting there with one leg underneath me, waiting for something, anything, to happen. I could barely read the look in his eyes before they were inches from my face, one heavy, guilty hand on the back of my head, and in a considerably less careful way he pressed our lips together a second time. I tasted blood. I didn’t care. His hands and the force of his kiss pushed me back against the sofa, an unwanted grunt pulled itself from my throat but that just seemed to rile him up even more because his mouth opened and to the untrained eye it could’ve been said that we were trying to eat each other’s faces from how sloppy and hungrily he was kissing me. I returned it just as enthusiastically, my hands made fists in his shirt, he was so fucking _good_ at everything he was doing, I felt like I was on fire and I never wanted it to end. All I could hear was the wet sound of kissing and our heavy breathing peppering the background noise of the movie we’d discarded.

I pushed back against him and his back hit the arm of the sofa, our mouths didn’t break contact, but Michael moved his hands from my neck to my waist and the exposed skin where my shirt had pulled up. Actual skin on skin contact with him sent electricity through my body without fail every single time, I growled and bit his lip, forcing his legs apart with my knee. He was hard already, I knew he would be because I was the same, feeling this solid mass against my thigh and knowing it was because of me caused a shudder of pleasure to run through my body, his leg came up to meet my crotch, mirroring my actions, and I couldn’t believe I was actually here, rutting against him like a fucking dog and he was letting me do it, no, _encouraging_ me to do it. Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine this could happen to me. No one was interested in me, but that was okay because I wasn’t interested in anyone either, not until Michael, that is.

There were these tiny throaty noises coming from him when my thigh rubbed against his dick through two pairs of jeans, it drove me fucking _wild_. He sounded so fucking perfect, it took everything in me to try and restrain myself but it was no good, my hand slithered down his body, radiating intense heat like nothing else, and palmed him through his jeans.

“Ugh…” He murmured, my hands fiddled desperately with his button and my lips found his neck when he turned his face away to breathe. “T…” I didn’t respond, just sank down off the sofa onto my knees with one hand down his pants and the other trying to pull them down further. He’d sat up and gave a half-assed, nervous attempt at pushing them down, I was close enough that I could feel the heat radiating off his dick through his underwear, one hand slowly jerking him through the fabric while I steeled myself. I’d never done this before, I was nervous but damn if I wasn’t enthusiastic. My brain screamed at me to do it, that if I could just get Michael’s cock in my mouth all my problems would go away for good. But as soon as I’d readied myself, and I reached up to pull his underwear away, a hand flattened over mine and he said three words I never expected to hear right now.

“Wait, Trevor. Stop.”

I’m kneeling there between his legs, trying to fucking blow him and he’s stopping me. The fucker is _stopping_ me. I looked up to meet his eye, it was the first time we’d paused, the first time I’d looked at his face since claiming his mouth as my own, and as much as it pleased me to see the pink flush across his cheeks, I did not like the expression he had on his face, almost as much as I didn’t like the hand preventing me from seeing him, or sucking him for that matter.

“What?”

“I said stop, it’s not…” He swallowed and ran a heavy hand across his damp face, still trying to catch his breath. “It’s not right. We can’t.”

Oh my God.

A crashing wave of utter humiliation slapped me across the face. I couldn’t even respond to what he’d said because I was shakily pushing myself to my feet and heading for the door.

“Trevor, wait.”

But I wouldn’t wait. I couldn’t bear to look at his face again. I am such a fucking _idiot_ , a desperate fucking loser with no self-control and he probably regretted ever coming near me. He’d never have responded that way if he was sober and I was stupid to ever think he would. I could hear his heavy footsteps hurrying after me through the freezing night air, and it was only when I shouted over my shoulder that I noticed that my face was wet with shameful tears, it was as if my body was trying to humiliate me even further.

“Fuck off!”

“Trevor stop.”

“No! Fuck yourself, Townley!”

The last thing I wanted was to face him again, I was just going to keep walking through the snow until I froze to death and never have to deal with this reprehensible fucking mess again.

“Stop. Just talk to me.”

“I don’t ever want to talk to you again.” I hissed. He was catching up to me fast, and to my anger he caught me with one hand on my shoulder and span me around to face him. The shock of embarrassment and the cold air had sobered me considerably but I still felt like garbage, I could barely think coherently, a million awful things running through my broken mind.

“Please, you have to listen to me.”

“I should have known better than to ever fuckin’ trust you. I’ve never even fuckin’… _kissed_ anyone before, and you have to just fuck it up and humiliate me for it.” I wasn’t quite yelling, I was too ashamed of myself to shout, but I scrubbed away my stupid tears and made fists in the front of his shirt to shake him slightly, he was still warm.

“Trevor…”

“I know you and your friends just think I’m a desperate little faggot who can’t wait to get his hands on your precious fucking dick.” I spat in his face, I was taller than him, so I should have felt like I had the upper hand but I didn’t, I felt awful and small, I’d never feel normal again near him. He’d always be that guy who made me feel worse than I’d ever felt before, and I’ve experienced some real shit in my day.

“I don’t think that about you!” God he looked sad, but it was dark so I could have been mistaken. “I’ve never thought that about you.”

I couldn’t respond, I didn’t know what to even say, but I left my fists buried in his shirt and my eyebrows pulled down. My teeth were clenched so hard I felt like my jaw was gonna snap right off. One of Michael’s hands reached up and… he placed it softly over mine.

“I like you Trevor, I’m just… I’m scared.” That caught me so off-guard I relaxed my hands against my will.

“Scared of what?”

“Of this. Of what it means… about me.”

“You’re a faggot just like me, you like dick, that’s what it means.” I scowled and demonstrated my point by grabbing my crotch.

“I… I know! I don’t fucking want to but I do, okay?” He turned away from me slightly and covered his face with both hands. He looked so weak like this, shrinking away from me in the snow wearing nothing warmer than a T-shirt, he was nothing like the jock I’d met a few weeks ago, nothing like people thought he was, he was a scared boy questioning his whole identity. I was still mad at him though.

“Why did you fucking stop me then? Do you know how fucking humiliating that is?”

“I stopped because I respect you, T. Because I don’t want the first time we… do anything to be some drunken grope in my trailer. Believe it or not I actually care about you, I just imagined it to be a bit more fuckin’ special than that. For one, I didn’t want it to be when we were drunk.”

“You seemed pretty fuckin’ into it before.”

“What was I supposed to do? You kissed me, was I meant to just pretend it’s not what I’ve wanted for weeks? I just got caught up in it all and I’m not thinking straight.” He made a fist in his hair. “ _God_ , I really didn’t want to have this conversation while I’m so wasted.”

Neither did I but I knew that I’d never have the balls to kiss him while sober, or even tell him how I felt, doing this drunk was the only option my brain allowed.

“Look, T, I’m really sorry I did that, it was shitty of me.”

“It was.”

“But I didn’t do it because I didn’t want it. I just… I dunno, you mean more to me than that.” He flinched at his own words. “God that sounds so lame when I say it out loud.”

I shrugged. My heart was going crazy listening to him say all these sweet fuckin words to me but I still had enough pride to play it cool. “It’s fine.”

“I’m just really fuckin’ nervous around you. It’s so dumb.”

I swallowed. “Same.” My voice was throaty and I’d said it quietly but he looked up at me with these big hopeful eyes. “Michael, I just have one question for you.”

“What is it?”

“Are you gonna take me on a real date now?”

He couldn’t hold back the small laugh and rested his forehead on my shoulder. I met his back with one hand, I wanted to cling to him but I still felt so stupid and betrayed and that made me feel worse, so I didn’t, I just frowned at the snow. I should be happy, I should be jumping for fuckin’ joy, but this all just felt… strange. I needed to be sober. I needed to think. He put his hand on the side of my neck and pressed his face against me.

“You have no idea how much I want this.”

Despite how open he was being with me I was still too cowardly to tell him exactly how I felt, how desperately I’d wanted him, how much it ached when his hand would brush mine, I just stood there with one hand on his warm back and relished the feeling of his face in my neck.

“I should, uh… probably get home.”

Michael pulled back and nodded.

“Yeah. Best not let my dad catch us in my room. Look, we can talk about this tomorrow, okay? I’ll come over and we can… I dunno, try to figure this out.”

“Yeah. See you tomorrow.”

I left him standing in the snow and headed back to my trailer. I’d left some stuff at his place but I wouldn’t go back in there now if my life depended on it, the sharp sting of humiliation was still present in my brain, I needed to be alone.

 

When I woke up I covered my face with my pillow. I was thinking about how I’d had this amazing dream, but the longer I thought about it the more I realised it wasn’t a dream at all, it had actually happened. Hazy fuckin’ memories of heady kisses and drunken fumbling but then… horrible, painful humiliation. Did it end okay? I think so. I wished my memory was clearer, this was important God damn it! My head was pounding from my hangover, but I needed to think hard about this.

Bottom line is, I put my mouth on Michael’s mouth and he didn’t hate me for it. That alone made me grin widely into the pillow still covering my face. He’d said he would come over today, I glanced at the clock, it was already 1pm, so I wasn’t sure what time he was planning on arriving, but I was nervous. Was he gonna kiss me again? I hoped so. I really did.

I had a shower and got dressed while I waited for him, I was too on edge to eat, I just waited in my darkened room until he arrived, sparing my eyes from the harsh light of day. They were still pretty sensitive.

There was this cautious knocking at my front door. God. He was here already. I felt sick. I got shakily to my feet and walked to the door. What the hell was going to happen? Was he going to throw himself at me on sight? Would he be romantic, or forceful, or shy? Christ I was not used to this feelings bullshit.

He was looking pretty fucking nervous himself when I opened the door, there was no passionate greeting, no quickie on the floor, he just stepped inside and didn’t remove his hands from his pockets.

“Hi…”

“Hi.”

We didn’t look into each other’s eyes, just avoided eye contact completely, I don’t think I’d ever been this awkward in my life, considering I had his dick in my hand last night we were acting pretty fuckin prudish.

“You can, uh, take off your coat you know. I mean, if you’re staying.”

“Oh, yeah.” He dumped it on the sofa because it was pretty clear there were no rules in my house, and when he’d removed his shoes too, he seemed to take a deep breath to steel himself and stepped towards me, pulling me into this shy, apprehensive hug that made my heart ache with adoration for him. Now that I was fully conscious of my actions I was able to notice all the little things, like how he smelled, and how warm he felt, and how he was digging his fingers into my skin just a little bit.

“We can talk in my room if you want to.” I realised how much that sounded like a proposition after I’d already said it but he just pulled back and nodded.

“I’m sorry I’m late coming over. I’m really hung over today, and I was just, y’know… nervous.” He said stiffly, sitting heavily on my bed.

“It’s okay.”

“That was some night, huh.”

“Yeah. It was something.”

“I don’t remember much of what I said, I just hope I didn’t make an ass of myself.”

“Well, we both kinda did, so it doesn’t matter.”

“I just remember you getting really mad at me, and I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, you apologised last night.”

“I know I did, I just feel like an asshole for doing it.” He mumbled. “You gotta know that if we weren’t so drunk I wouldn’t have stopped you.”

I rubbed my face. “Mike, it’s fine.”

“I just really don’t want you to be put off me because of it.” He said, still keeping his voice low.

“I’m not.”

He turned his head to look at me, and I noticed how close we were sitting, my heart was thumping so hard I was convinced he could hear it, but he didn’t say anything about it, he just shifted slightly closer to me and I don’t think I was even breathing, I could physically feel the anticipation as his breath hit my lips moments before his touched me.

Without sounding horribly cliché I think I fucking melted. His lips were soft and warm and I needed more, but I was fucking scared, I had my hand down his pants mere hours ago and I was sitting here trembling like a virgin bride. I pulled back against my will and scowled into my lap, trying to hide my shaking hands.

“Sorry, I dunno why that’s happening.”

“It’s okay.” He said quietly, kissing my neck.

“This is so weird.”

“I know.”

I crushed my lips back against his, deciding to steady my hand by putting it on the side of his head. God, I could do this all fucking day. I’d been waiting for this for nearly eighteen years and Christ was it worth the wait, Michael parted his lips slightly and I pushed back against him, his hands fiddled with the zip of my jacket so that he could pull it off me and feel more of my body with his big, wandering palms. I don’t know if it was just me being inexperienced or because he was just so attractive and knew exactly how to kiss me, but I could feel what was happening in my pants, and just because I knew one of us had to make the first move, I ran my hand up his leg and found that he was in the exact same position. He murmured into my mouth as I ground the heel of my hand into the outline of his boner, I wanted to pick up exactly where we left off, but he pulled back again.

“I’m still like, figuring this out. I’m trying to get my head around it, and saying this is the most mortifying thing I’ve ever done in my life, but do you mind if we just… take it kinda slow?”

I was less quick to anger this time because one, I was thinking clearly and two, he actually explained himself.

“Oh, uh, yeah, sure.” I started to pull my hand away but he pushed it back against his dick.

“What I mean is, I don’t mind doing this but I’m not ready to, y’know… have sex yet.” He looked so fucking embarrassed to be saying that, but I didn’t care, I just nodded.

“That’s okay.” I said, pushing my mouth back on his, I didn’t care if we had sex, just doing this was fucking incredible, but the fact he put my hand back on his crotch meant he wanted more, and I was all too happy to give it to him. With still trembling hands I opened the front of his jeans, and this time he was actually enthusiastic about helping me pull them down instead of quietly unsure, we stayed connected through desperate kisses as I shoved my hand down his underwear and grabbed a fistful of his dick.

It goes without saying I’ve never touched anyone else’s dick before, and it surprised me how similar his felt to mine, except the sheer fact that this was _Michael’s_ made a heavy shiver run down my spine. His skin was really fucking soft and as I gently ran my hand up and down the length of it, he let out this long, slow moan into my mouth that zapped me in the crotch as if I’d been electrocuted. I wasn’t even being touched and it was hard to hold back how aroused I was. My face was on fire, Michael’s hand was clenched around my jaw like he was gonna crush my head, and he was leaning back on his other hand, I thought I was gonna die from how happy I was, how excited, even just from the knowledge that there was more to come.

I couldn’t take the anticipation any more, I regretfully pulled away from his mouth and sank to my knees in front of him for the second time in two days, he sat up eagerly to look at me, I met his eye as I slowly jerked him off, again I was kind of nervous, but there was nothing stopping me this time and I leaned in to take him into my mouth, it was pretty much everything I expected but better. Once again there was this painfully incredible noise he made from deep within his chest, and his hands buried themselves deep in my hair while he buried himself deep in my mouth.

“Ohhh my God…” He mumbled, I glanced up at him, his eyes were closed and just the _sight_ of him like that, and knowing what I was doing to him, knowing he was utterly fucking happy because of me, all of it just rushed right to my dick, which was burning to be free from my jeans, and unknown to him, I pushed my hand down inside them.

I mirrored my actions with my hand, my tongue flicked over the head of his dick, my thumb did the same to my own, I slowly pulled back from him, I pulled my hand almost completely away. His fingers felt amazing in my hair, gently guiding me to do what he wanted me to, it sounded pretty fucking enjoyable from the low sounds he was making, and doing this to him didn’t at all feel like I thought it would, I mean, I thought doing it would be fun for him and not much for me, but as soon as I tasted him I knew I wanted more of this. I could do this all day, but his fingers were getting tighter, and I could feel his hips moving against me, I knew he was close, I wanted to make it as good for him as possible, barely breathing as I brought him to his peak, then I could feel the hot liquid spilling into my mouth, running down the back of my throat, it tasted strange but not bad, and I eagerly swallowed it, coming to my own happy fuckin’ ending in my jeans. His dick twitched slightly in my mouth as he rode out his orgasm, falling back against the bed, fingers twisting in my hair, he sighed out heavily and relaxed.

A string of spit joined my lower lip to the head of his dick when I pulled back, and that image was so obscene I could almost feel myself getting hard again, but I pushed that away, I was exhausted, my arm hurt from how hard I’d pulled myself off, and my jaw was sore from the unusual actions I’d made it do, combined with the thorough beating I’d received yesterday, but I was satisfied. So fucking satisfied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it, the money shot, the chapter you've all been waiting for. I just hope I met every expectation, but don't worry if not, there is MUCH more to come, I'll make sure of it.
> 
> Poor Trevor, you might have guessed that I like drawing bruises because these boys just can't catch a break.
> 
> As always, illustration is on my tumblr here: http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/102461407609
> 
> I really do appreciate all the love you give me on my writing and my art, so shoot me some comments telling me what you think of this chapter/picture. I read and respond to every comment I get, they really make my day, I love knowing that people are liking my work!


	8. God Damn Boyfriend

All I could hear was his heavy breathing and the pulse beating in my ears. There was just this still atmosphere, both of us not saying a word, and unsure of how to proceed after what just happened. I pulled my hand from my pants and wiped it off on a T-shirt that was lying beside me, and I have to say the longer Michael didn’t speak to me the more I kind of felt ashamed of myself. Cheapened, somehow. I know it was stupid, but I was just a kid and I didn’t know how these things were meant to play out, but then, eventually, he pushed himself with great effort into a sitting position and he had this beautiful God damn smile on his face. His hand reached out to me.

“Come here.” Michael said quietly, I raised myself up to where his hand touched my cheek, his smile ghosted across his exhausted lips and he leaned down to meet mine. My heart ached and hurt inside me in all the best ways and I threw my desperate arms around his neck, I never thought myself one to get sappy after a sexual act but Michael instilled something fucking sentimental in me. I couldn’t stop myself. He flopped back down on my bed with me on top of him and we just lay there clinging to each other in a way that I could only describe as affectionate. His still heavy breath pushed my hair back and forth across my neck and I loved it, I loved how warm it felt on my skin, I loved how it felt to be lying here with his arms around me and soaking up this post sexual high.

It was like a fuckin’ movie, he pulled out a crushed pack of cigarettes and lit one up right then and there, his dick only just back in his pants and mine uncomfortably damp, we lay on my bed.

“Oh man…” He sighed heavily, his eyes were closed and there was this small smile on his face, and I can honestly say it was fuckin’ beautiful. “Were you serious when you said you’d never kissed anyone before?”

I could feel my cheeks burn. “Yeah.”

“So I take it you’ve never done that before either?”

“No.”

He exhaled a cloud of smoke and smiled. “You could’ve fooled me, man.” God he was such a dog, I grinned and buried my face in his chest, he petted my hair absently. “You know, I’ll tell you this, after yesterday? I was thinking about it in bed, and I’ve never came like that before in my life. I mean, until now.”

Just the thought of Michael masturbating over me made my insides twist in a sickeningly pleasant way. I just laughed into his T-shirt and held my arm around him even tighter. I was giddy and still trembling, but for different reasons, I’d never felt so happy in my life.

“D’you want me to like, y’know?” He asked after a moment.

“Nah, I’m good.” I murmured against him. “I did it.”

He kissed the side of my head. “Okay.” He said. “I will next time.”

“It’s fine, you don’t have to.”

“Yeah, but I want to. I’m kinda… nervous about it. But I want to.”

I glanced up at his face, semi obscured by smoke. “How long have you thought you might be into guys?”

His eyebrows pulled down slightly, I figured he was still kind of ashamed of himself.

“I dunno. A while.”

“Does anyone else know?”

“Hell no.”

“Figured as much.”

“Seriously, do you think I’m suicidal or something? People can never know about this.”

“Yeah, take it from me, you don’t want this getting out.”

Michael turned his head towards me, he reached out with one hand and brushed his thumb across the bruise under my eye. “I’m really sorry they did this to you.”

“It’s fine, I’d almost forgotten about it.”

“I’m just so angry that they think they can get away with doing that. Who was it?”

“Michael, I told you to just leave it, there’s no point.”

“I just want to know.”

“Steve Haines and Brad.”

Michael rolled onto his back and ran a heavy hand across his face. “I had a feeling it was Brad, at least. But Steve too? T, you know I can’t guarantee I’m not gonna say anything to them.”

“Just don’t make a big deal of it, I can fight my own battles. I’ve told you that before. I don’t need you to defend me or some shit like that.”

“I just care about you.” He said quietly.

“While that’s incredibly sentimental and sweet, Michael, I can still take care of myself.” I said, ignoring the fact my stomach was in knots at those words.

“Have you thought about what’s going to happen at school, yet?”

“Nothing is going to happen. I’m going to continue living on the edges of everyone’s attention where I belong, and you’re going to stay right in the middle of it where you belong. Nothing is going to change.”

Michael shrugged. “I guess so.”

“There’s no guessing about it, we can’t let this get out.” As much as I didn’t care if people knew I just gave Michael a blowjob, I was saying it for him, I knew how much his position meant to him despite how much he also hated it. Leaving things as they were was better for everyone. Michael meant enough to me that I wanted everything to be okay for him.

Both of us wanted him to stay the night at my place that night, but I sent him home. If my mom came home from God knows where she was, and saw a guy in my bed, she would probably flip. And although he’d slept here before, that was before I was free to touch him and cling to him, that was back when even my subconscious kept me at a safe, heterosexual distance. Now, though? If he slept in the same bed as me, I wanted full hugging privileges.

 

His car wasn’t outside, his bike wasn’t outside, he wasn’t outside. Michael wasn’t here to pick me up today, and although we’d never explicitly said he would drive me to school every day, I couldn’t help the slight disappointment at not seeing him today. But I wasn’t going to sit feeling sorry for myself, I just started the walk through the slushy, wet snow and tried not to think too hard about the possibility he was regretting everything. My mind focused on things like that far too easily, it didn’t do me any good. If Michael regretted it, I’d know by now.

Our first class together was unfortunately very Michael-free, his chair sat empty by the window and I found myself missing the sight of the back of his head, whereas before I would have happily sat here for the whole class flicking things at him, I just felt a slight sinking in my chest at his absence. It got to the point where I couldn’t even pretend to listen to the teacher, in this class or the next, he was taking over my brain in that _way_ of his. With that painfully attractive smile, and his stupid solid shoulders he’d managed to worm his way into my head and stay there, tormenting me.

I didn’t see him until lunch when I glanced up and oh my God there he was. Holding a tray and coming towards me through the crowded cafeteria, I ducked my head and focused on my book instead of watching him approach me. I was suddenly and uncomfortably shy about interacting with him here. He sat down opposite me and our knees bumped.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

How the fuck was I meant to act now I’d sucked his dick? I had to look at him in a way that didn’t convey to everyone that yes, in fact, I had sucked his dick.

“Sorry I didn’t pick you up this morning. I was late getting up.”

I shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“You okay?”

“Peachy.”

“I missed you last night.” He said under his breath, mostly keeping his eyes on his food but affording one small glance up to me. I was so mad at him for it, I wanted so much to just keep cool around him but here he was making me smile like an idiot again. It wasn’t fair. Why did he have to have this power over me? I didn’t want this, I didn’t ask for this, but I found my face burning with the intensity of my high school crush. “Did you miss me?” He asked with a teasing tone. I kicked him under the table.

“I don’t _miss_ people.”

“You missed me.” There was no response I could give, I just kicked him again. Michael smirked to himself and quietly took a sip of his soda thoughtfully. “Hey, uh, I was thinking I could come over again tonight and we could… well, yesterday was really great and I thought we could-”

“You’re saying you want to hook up again?”

“Shh!” He hissed, glancing around, but no one was near us. “You don’t have to be so _obvious_ about it but, yeah.”

“Cool, I look forward to it.” I tried my hardest to sound nonchalant but inside I was jumping around the room, so fucking excited that Michael actually wanted to keep this up, my subconscious had been so convinced he’d want nothing more to do with me, and hearing this from his own mouth was indescribably amazing.

“I have practice after class.” He added. “So I can see you after that.” I nodded, our next class was also together, and whereas this morning I couldn’t focus because I was worried, now I was just too damn excited to pay attention, I was practically fucking giddy with romantic feelings. After it was over I followed him to the locker room, it was empty, as no one else had got there yet, so I took the opportunity to push him against a locker. I hadn’t been able to touch or kiss him all day, and even though we had plans for tonight, I could hardly wait.

I wish you could come straight back to my place instead of doing this.”

“I know. I’ll be over later.” I leaned in towards him for a kiss, but of course that was when we heard voices approaching the door to the locker room, and Michael jumped away from me.

“Shit. Uh, hide in the showers.” He said quietly, ushering me towards them.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes, I’m serious. Do you know what they’ll do if they find you hanging out in here?”

It didn’t matter to me one bit what they’d do if they found me in here with him, but for Michael’s sake I hid. The shower was still wet, which was pretty gross if you ask me. I had to make sure my shoes didn’t squeak on the tiles as I crept in there. The voices grew louder as the locker room door opened and I quickly identified one of the voices as Brad and grimaced, he was such a fucking Neanderthal and it showed in his voice.

“Mikey-boy! You don’t have that urchin freak clinging to you, what happened?”

“You know, you’re a real piece of shit, Brad. Both of you are.”

“Is that so, Townley?” Steve. He was even worse, he sounded so smug about it.

“What the fuck did Trevor ever do to you?”

“He’s weird and an asshole.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Steve, is he encroaching on your territory as head asshole?”

“Fuck off, Michael, you know, you really better start rethinking where your loyalties lie.”

“My loyalties? I didn’t realise we were in the fuckin’ mafia and not just some high school football team.”

“Watch yourself. You and that fucking freak better look over your shou-” Steve’s self-satisfied voice was cut off by the most satisfying meaty _thud_ , as I can only assume Michael punched him in the face. I grinned to myself, God he was perfect.

“Say it again.”

“You’re really gonna fucking regret this, Townley.”

“Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

“Protecting your little boyfriend? Thought as much.”

“He’s not my God damn boyfriend.”

“Why don’t you fucking prove it?” Steve said in a low voice, and that was the last thing they said, I can only assume what followed was a lot of mean glances and surly changing into football gear. Michael took the opportunity once the rest of them had headed out to the pitch to look around the corner into the showers.

“You’d better take off. I’ll swing by your place after practice?”

“Yeah, sure.” He touched my shoulder briefly and hurried off after the others, I wasn’t particularly sad about him saying those things to them, I mean, he had to defend himself, and it’s true, I wasn’t exactly his boyfriend, but I guess I wanted to be. It sounded so damn sappy when I put it like that though, I’d never admit it to Michael, but I just wanted as much as I could get from him.

I probably could have waited for him and watched him practice, but I didn’t want to draw more attention to myself, or more specifically, to the two of us. Do friends watch other friends play football or is that something reserved just for the person you’re currently making out with? Hell if I know. It wasn’t something I was willing to risk.

I knew one thing though, I really fucking wanted to punch Steve in the face. Brad, I can deal with, he was just stupid, but Steve was smart, Steve knew what to say and how to get to Michael. I didn’t spend enough time around him for his sharp words to get to me, but Michael was with him most of the day, and despite how kind and gentle he was with me, I knew he was hot-headed. It had gotten him in trouble before with the school, almost kicked off the football team for it, and I was kind of concerned about Steve saying something at the wrong time and causing Michael to lose his cool in front of the wrong people. The wrong people being the principal or coach. I just didn’t want him to be severely punished because of me, I knew how much he relied on being on the team, whether he liked it or not.

 

My stomach did a flip when I heard knocking at my front door, it was shameful the way I desperately stumbled over myself in my haste to answer it, and then suddenly the door was open and there he was in my face and kissing me and pinning me to the opposite wall. His breath was hot and heavy on my lips and his chest rumbled deeply as he spoke, making my knees weak.

“I missed you.” Michael said for the second time that day, I could never get used to hearing that.

“It’s only been like an hour.”

“I know.”

“You’re so lame.”

“I know.” He crushed his lips back against mine, pressing me into the wall, and although he was shorter than me, I felt utterly dwarfed by his presence, he was so forceful, so dominating, I never wanted this to end. Two huge hands were raking through my hair. I had to pull my face away from him to gasp a fresh, cool breath of air, and he turned his greedy attention to my neck.

“Dude, you’re lucky I’m alone here. If my mom was around-” Michael pulled back and put a slightly sweaty finger to my lips.

“In the age of free love, everything has a price.” He said softly. I just fuckin’ stared.

“What is that? Is that a movie or something? Are you quoting a movie at me?”

“ _An American Divorce_? Richards Majestic? Jesus, Trevor, I can’t believe of all the films you haven’t seen-”

“Shut _up_ , Michael.” I said, pulling him back against me. He was lucky he was cute because Jesus Christ was he boring. His throat rumbled and produced this incredible noise against my skin, his breath and his hands and his kissing was making me weak, I was convinced that if he wasn’t pinning me there on the wall I’d have collapsed with sheer joy. This boy was making me so happy, so why did he pull away and uncomfortably avoid my eyes?

“Hey… um, I have to tell you something before I forget. Don’t freak out.” Whatever followed that sentence could not be good, there was no way I’d still feel this good if he continued speaking, and it was a combination of my denial and the fact that his voice must have faded out of existence for a few moments, because I couldn’t fully comprehend his next sentence.

“You’re doing what?” I eventually managed to say, glaring at him. I’d stepped away from him when he spoke, and I was kind of wishing I’d moved further.

“It’s a double date, it’s nothing serious.”

“You’re going on a date with some random girl before going on one with me?”

“Trevor, we went on a date, remember.”

“Cut the shit, I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

He was trying to pull me back closer to him, trying to soften me up again, but I wasn’t having it, I was standing firm and nothing he said would make me feel any better about what he just told me.

“Come on, T. I don’t want to do this, you have to believe that I don’t.”

“No I don’t.”

“It’s not a real date.”

“Does she know it’s not a real date?”

“Well, no.”

“Then that sounds like a real fuckin’ date, Michael.” I scowled. “Where are you going?”

“We’re going to the movies tomorrow. It’s just a movie, I’m doing this to protect us.”

I barked a laugh. “Of course.”

“By doing this, I can keep some of the heat off us, they’re always getting at me for not going out with anyone and, well, this is my chance to cover my ass a bit.”

“Well we can see how well your ass is covered if I tell everyone about us.”

His face dropped, his expression blank with a touch of fear. “You wouldn’t.”

“Wouldn’t I?” I hissed. I wouldn’t. We both knew I wouldn’t do it, but threatening him with the truth felt really fucking good.

“If you cared about me at all, you wouldn’t.”

“If you cared about me you wouldn’t go on a date with someone else barely two days into… this.” I gestured between us. It was too soon to be calling myself his boyfriend but that’s exactly where I intended this to go.

“I do care about you. I do.” His sly hand found my waist again, I was even considering letting it go for a second before he opened his stupid mouth again. “Can’t we just make up and do what I came here to do?” His words were blunt and they stung, he didn’t even realise what he’d said, didn’t realise how harsh that came across. The suggestion that he was just here to fuck and leave cut me in the most vulnerable place. My face hardened and I stepped away from his gentle touch.

“Go home, Michael.”

“T, come on.”

“No, just go away. I don’t want to talk to you because I might just punch you in your God damn face.”

“Trevor-”

“Just get out of here!” He reluctantly did what I asked, straightening his jacket so he didn’t look so dishevelled and quietly closing the door behind him. Maybe I shouldn’t have been so mad at him, but I fucking was, I was so pissed off that he’d agree to do this, knowing full well how I’d feel about it. I was starting to rethink this whole stupid situation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys I am so sorry this took so long and that it's a lot shorter than I wanted it to be. I've just been so busy over christmas and got a bit of creative block. Basically I just wanted this chapter out of the way so I can move onto the next one so that's why I'm leaving it short and uploading it now. Thank you so much for your patience I love you all. As always, comments are SO VERY appreciated, they keep me inspired.
> 
> illustration link: http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/104032762409


	9. Wild Dude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: minor self harm

On the night of Michael’s precious double date, spending time with Wade wasn’t doing much to help my mood about the whole thing. He could see that my mind wasn’t on the game of cards we were playing on Ron’s floor, but I think neither of them really knew what to say to me when I wasn’t my regular _cheerful_ self. What a fucking joke.

To his credit, Wade tried after a couple of games.

“Why are you sad, Trevor?” Both of them looked nervous at the question, as if I was gonna blow up in their faces. I don’t know where they could have got an idea like that from.

“I’m not.” I said, chewing on my thumbnail and looking down at the poor hand of cards I was holding. With one swift movement I chucked them down and stood up. “Let’s go to town.”

I felt better in the cold night air, I belonged there, outside like some kind of wild thing. Because that’s what I was, after all, a wild thing that no one could tie down, especially not Michael fucking Townley. If he wanted to go out with someone else, that was up to him, I wasn’t going to stop him, he might think I actually cared or something. But if that was the case, why did I seem to be heading towards the theatre? And why were my eyes scanning the line of people outside? Why did I stop dead at the sight of him there, a girl on his arm, laughing with his friends? Why did it feel like my chest was being crushed? I don’t know why I hurt myself by coming past here. I could pretend all I liked that it was just a coincidence but I knew I did it on purpose, and it felt just as shitty as I thought it would.

I just had to remember it was an act. He wasn’t actually dating her, he was with me.

I think.

“Isn’t that your friend?” Wade asked, following my gaze across the street.

“Yeah, something like that.” I mumbled. We’d not even been together for a week yet and he was already going out with someone else. I’m not good enough for him, I’m not good enough for anyone. Michael didn’t notice me standing there, and that was the way I wanted it.

 

 

I left him to his stupid date and went back to his trailer. It seemed like a good idea to wait for him there, I knew he still had a bottle of whiskey under his bed, and I planned on drinking the whole thing before he got back. I needed to psyche myself up for the conversation. I wanted to know who the hell he thought he was, treating me like this.

Maybe it was pathetic of me, lying there in his dark bedroom, working myself up about one date, but I wasn’t one to sit around and let someone mess me about, certainly not some big headed jock asshole.

It was easy to pass the time by seething, getting angrier by the minute, until the moment I heard his front door quietly open and the soft step of his feet coming closer. Michael opened his bedroom door and sighed, shrugging off his jacket and throwing his keys onto a shelf.

“How was your _date_?”

“Jesus Christ, Trevor. You scared the shit out of me.”

“Good.” I spat.

“Are you drunk again?” He asked after a pause.

“So fucking what if I am?”

“How long have you been in here?”

“Long enough.” I didn’t even really know what I meant by that, but I hoped it was vaguely threatening enough to get my point across. I could just about make out his silhouette in the darkness, he started to pull off his shoes, but his eyes remained on me.

“I’m sorry you feel so strongly about this, but you gotta believe that it meant nothing to me. As far as I’m concerned, it was just going out with some friends. Dave was there, you know that.”

“Did you kiss her?” The words were sour in my mouth and I washed them away with another swig of whiskey.

“No, Trevor.” Michael’s voice was steady, calm, I believed him but I was so wound up and upset that I didn’t _want_ to believe him. I wanted to believe that he betrayed me just so I had more of an excuse to be mad at him.

“Prove it.”

“What does that mean? How could I prove that?”

“I dunno! Just fuckin… You’re such a _dick_.” I rolled over to face his wall. I couldn’t bear to look at his stupid, beautiful face anymore, despite how hidden it was in shadow. My chest was aching, whether I was blowing this out of proportion didn’t matter now, the damage to my fragile ego had already been done. My plans to make some big emphatic speech had been crushed the moment he arrived. The mattress sank a bit when he sat down beside me, I didn’t turn to look at him again, I couldn’t stand it, so he took that as a cue to lie down, pressing his entire warm chest against my back and wrapping those big arms around my stupid, skinny frame. His lips were dry and hot on the back of my neck where he pressed them.

“I’m sorry.”

I grunted in response.

“I didn’t know you’d take it this hard.”

“I don’t know why I’m fucking around with you like this. It’s just gonna end in fuckin’ sadness. Probably mine.” Whiskey made me so God damn depressed, I was regretting even drinking it in the first place, but being drunk was better than being sober right now, I needed the numbness, despite the accompanying depression.

“It’ll work, T. We’ll make it work. I, uh… Christ, you know how happy you make me.”

“Mmm.”

“Hey, look, Dave told me about a Halloween party this weekend, you should come.”

“Why would I want to go to your friend’s shitty party?” I snapped.

“We can go together.”

“Like a fucking _date_?” I rolled over and growled in his face, he gently pushed me back.

“No, I mean yeah, between us. We don’t have to publicly announce it.”

“Won’t your precious Dave wonder why you’re hanging out with a freak like me at his party?”

“Nah, man, Dave’s cool I told you.”

As much as Michael tried to convince me his friend was ‘cool’ I didn’t believe him. I’d seen what his teammates were really like, without Michael there as a buffer, they were the last people I wanted to spend time with. No doubt the whole team would be at this party, and I was sure they would use it as an opportunity to target me. Regardless, I found it hard to say no to him. I _wanted_ to spend time with him, even if it meant seeing them. I _wanted_ to hang out with Michael and get drunk while wearing shitty costumes. I was angry at myself for letting him get away with this so easily, for letting him pull my shoes off and put the covers over us both, and I was furious at myself when I let him kiss me.

He insisted we dressed up to go to this place, I wasn’t too bothered about it but apparently to attend a Halloween party it was some sort of rule to put on a costume. I chose to be a werewolf because I guess they’re kinda cool, and I was into that American werewolf movie from a few years before. Michael went as a vampire because he’s a blood sucking piece of shit. He looked fucking handsome though, in a dumb sort of way. I couldn’t even kiss him because of his stupid fake teeth but looking at him was enough.

The party was in full swing when we arrived, which fortunately meant most people were too drunk to notice that we were together and comment on it. Michael greeted a few of his dense friends as we made our way through the crowd towards the drinks table in the kitchen, which was piled high with spirits. We spent a good hour or so together in the living room, and for a while I actually managed to forget how irritated I’d been with him about that whole date business. Michael was actually spending time with _me_ , he was laughing and joking and generally making me feel like a million bucks. Damn, I really wanted to kiss him, I knew I couldn’t in front of all these people, but that couldn’t stop me wanting it.

Michael nudged me, breaking my concentration on his lips.

“I’ll be right back. I have to make the rounds, y’know.”

I didn’t like the idea of him leaving me alone here, but what was I gonna do? Cling to his arm and beg him not to go? The only suitable response was a grunt and to wistfully watch him walk away from me into another room. I hated being the person stuck at the side of a room, clutching my drink and watching everyone else have fun, so I headed to the drinks table in the kitchen, at least that would give me something to do. With a tilt of my head I drained my beer on the way and tossed it to the side, knowing someone else would have to pick it up.

Standing at the kitchen island pouring shots were the two guys who saved my ass on the football pitch the other week, the tall one glanced up when I arrived. He had green face paint and plastic bolts attached to his neck, and the other was dressed as some kind of scientist.

“Hey, wild dude.” Tall guy said.

“Oh look, it’s my heroes.” I said sarcastically, picking up the shot he’d just poured and knocking it back. “What are you two meant to be? Frankenstein and his monster or something?”

“‘Franklinstein’, actually.” The shorter one said, I just stared. I didn’t get the joke. “My name’s Franklin.” He clarified.

“Oh. Nice one.” I offered, smiling weakly and raising my eyebrows, choosing to drink more instead of laugh at his shit joke.

“Didn’t expect to see you here tonight, wild dude, don’t see you at many parties.”

“Yeah I came with… a friend. It’s Trevor, by the way.”

“Lamar.”

Passing the time with Lamar and Franklin was easier than I expected, the two of them were easy to talk shit to, and at least I didn’t look like a complete loser while Michael was off doing… whatever. The three of us bonded over badly poured shots of something in a tall bottle and I almost managed to forget about the awful heart breaking jerk who’d brought me here, I was actually enjoying myself for once. The last thing I wanted to think about was how Michael managed to hurt me every chance he got, and the fact that he had been gone for an uncomfortably long time, but I couldn’t stop the niggling at the back of my mind that said I should go and see where he was.

I left the two of them in the kitchen and began the arduous task of finding Michael in a sea of bodies. My vision and senses were impaired by the alcohol, but after a couple of laps of the house I realised he was no longer inside it. Asshole. If he left without me I’d kill him. There were a few people floating around the front yard though, so that was my next port of call, but I had no luck there either, most people were inside avoiding the rain. There were a few shitty vampires around, but none of them were mine.

I turned to go back inside, at least I could-

I froze.

Was that…?

Behind me, at the roadside, there was a car parked, I didn’t recognise it but I damn well recognised who was sitting inside the fucking thing.

It was actually fucking raining and I had to watch Michael’s hands brush tentatively through this girl’s hair as she kissed him, my stomach flipped, I felt fucking nauseous. She was one of those cheerleaders, the one he went out with the other day, I couldn’t remember her name, but her hands were pressed against his neck where mine should be. His fake blood was on her face.

I couldn’t think straight, I had tunnel vision, my eyes were locked on this big fucking spade in the front garden and that’s what I went for. There weren’t even real, coherent thoughts in my head, it was just aching, and fury, and actions, and not even swinging this shovel above my head and bringing it down on the windscreen could snap me out of it.

The glass shattered, it didn’t fall in on them, but the noise was deafening, and her resulting scream of shock was even louder. I didn’t care. I hurled the spade into the road, it landed with a heavy clatter, and I just walked the fuck away. I didn’t have the energy for this. I felt weak and drained but furious and hurt at the same time, a million emotions rushing through my stupid fucking head.         

I pushed into a guy I didn’t know, who was standing on the lawn, because I just wanted someone to punch me in the face, and he did. I relished the pain shooting through my face, cooled by the night air, I deserved it for even believing Michael and I could have anything together. His voice was audible over the noise from the party and the rain and my pounding head, he was calling my name, but I couldn’t bear to listen to his fucking lies for another second.

“Trevor, stop!” This wasn’t the first time I’d heard that from him, he seemed to make a habit of disappointing me, I didn’t deserve it.

I did deserve it.

No, I deserve better.

No, I deserve _this_.

I reached the next road before he caught up with me, and considering he was a fucking quarterback, he could have reached me in seconds if he wanted to, but that was not the case. I don’t know what he wanted.

“Wait.”

I snapped around to face him, my hair was soaked, plastered to my face, I was fucking shivering and I felt so God damn pathetic.

“What am I to you? Am I a fucking joke? Do you laugh about me with her?”

“No! I care so much about you, Trevor, she’s nothing to me. I have to keep up appearances, you know we had a double date the other day, she said she wanted to talk in the car and then made a move, I couldn’t exactly reject her. You know how it is.”

“No I don’t know how it is, _Michael_. Please tell me _how it is._ ”

“It’s-”

“You’re using me, you’re using her, is there anyone you don’t fuck around?”

“I’m not _using_ you! You just don’t _get_ it, Trevor, I can’t be who I want to be!”

“You’re happy to string this girl along for your own image though, aren’t you? I’m so fucking sick of these stupid high school politics!”

“Yeah well, so am I! You think I’m not?”

“Sorry, I forgot how badly things are going for _you_. I forgot how bad _your_ life is, poor Michael Townley, king of North Yankton High, everyone worships him and kisses his ass, he fucks everyone over but he’s sad sometimes so it’s okay!”

His huge hands reached out and shoved me hard in the chest, I had to catch myself before I fell over from the sheer force, he was really fucking strong, and the anger in his eyes was the worst but I was even angrier, caught up in the heat of the moment and I punched him in the face. His own fist flew out and caught me across the jaw.

“You are such a fucking asshole.”

“I hate you! I fucking _hate_ you!” I hissed at him. Although my eyes were burning I refused to cry in front of him, I refused to give him that satisfaction. “I wish I never met you, you stupid fat bastard.”

Giving him a chance to reply wasn’t an option, I just left him standing there in the wet street. I don’t think I’ve ever felt sadder in my life, this really fucking hurt. It felt like someone was sitting on my chest.

 

There was a packet of cigarettes on my nightstand he must have left here from the last time he was over, the thought made me sick, remembering the two of us in my bed the other day. I never wanted to think about him again but I couldn’t stop the imposing thoughts of his stupid fucking face.

I lit a cigarette and put it to my lips. If Michael does it all the time it must be pretty good.

It tasted fucking disgusting. Part of me had at least expected it to have some semblance of a nice taste to it but it literally just tasted like sour smoke. Why he did this all day I have no idea. The smoke filtered out from between my lips and got in my eyes, but I didn’t care, I just looked down at the glowing tip and after a moment of staring at it brought it down on the skin of my left arm. My hand twitched at the sudden pain, but that didn’t stop me from doing it again. And again, making a wide, circular burn on my forearm. Furious tears leaked from my eyes against my will, no matter how hard I tried to swallow them away, they kept coming and coming and I couldn’t stop crying like a God damn fucking pussy so I stubbed the cigarette out on the crook of my elbow and chucked it across my room, missing my trash can by a mile.

 

I hate him.

I fucking love him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha it's been a long time!!! I got a message recently asking about this fic and it reminded me to finish this chapter, which was mostly written anyway. This is in no way a guarantee that the next chapter will be up soon, because that one is almost entirely just notes at the moment, and i have a different fic in the works which is consuming most of my time. But I thought it was about time i had mercy on the people waiting for this chapter. sorry to end it on a sad note again!
> 
> anyway as always, here's a link to the illustration: http://the-insufferable.tumblr.com/post/107348536234/


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